Damage
by quothme
Summary: Peeta, after. / Dark AU in which they can't find Peeta to rescue him. By the time the Rebellion is over, there's not much Peeta left.
1. Chapter 1

The monitors that dot District 13 reflect the logo, like hundreds of refracted eyes. A sea of faces swells in the central shaft, the cafeteria, the clinic. Ten minutes earlier, the monitors had sparked on to reveal Flickerman, somber and shocking. He told them that there would be a very special broadcast shortly. "You won't want to miss this," he'd said.

Ten minutes earlier. Ten interminable, unbearable minutes, in which Katniss contemplates any number of things Snow could show. All of these things, of course, involve Peeta. Peeta, who had given District 13 the warning it needed to send its citizens deep. Peeta, who they had not seen or heard since.

Katniss eschews the company of others to sit with Finnick in his hospital bed. Like her, he understands what's likely about to happen. She doesn't pull away when he reaches out to clasp her hand.

The anthem swells, and the Capitol TV logo fades to a sickening white, the same one that Snow's camp has been using for months. This time, there are no people in the frame, no chairs. If Katniss hadn't known better, she'd think there was some kind of glitch. But as the camera pans, it exposes nuances of depth in the room, walls, the hint of a raised platform. Then, at last at last at last, the backs of four people. Like in Snow's previous propos, these people are dressed in pure, simple white.

Katniss crushes Finnick's fingers.

Snow's voice breaks in. "Ours is an elegant system," he reminds them, calm as ever. "You protect us, we protect you."

On cue, the camera switches to a close-up of the first person's face, panning to the next, then the next, slow and stately. Faces she recognizes, all, though she doesn't know their names. Peeta would know their names. Some of the faces are flagrantly weeping, garish makeup running.

"These people have unfortunately chosen to dishonor our system."

The camera holds on a face whose name she does know—Portia. Like the rest of them, her eyes are lined with gold. Unlike the rest, her expression is serene and certain.

Wide shot now, the four of them standing, their arms and legs shackled with a simple cuff, limbs unnaturally still, likely frozen. Off-camera, there's an unmistakable sound—a chorus of firearms being cocked.

"Now," Snow continues. "They will bleed."

The scene shifts again, expanding to four men in full Peacekeeper regalia but a few yards away, pointing their rifles directly at the foursome. It's so quiet, you can hear the breathing, the staunched sobbing.

Katniss' heart is a lump of coal in her chest.

In perfect unison, the Peacekeepers get ready. They aim. They fire. Bodies crumple, blood sprays. The formerly pristine walls are a macabre spatter, bodies askew.

"Panem today. Panem tomorrow. Panem forever."

Hard cut to the Capitol seal, no music this time. As one, people across thirteen districts stare and stare.

Katniss and Finnick look at each other.

When it's clear the show is over, no grand finale like they were dreading, Finnick flicks off the monitor. Katniss faceplants into the mattress, hyperventilating. Snow just executed Peeta's prep team. On live TV.

But the question is: Where's Peeta?

No one knows. He hadn't been there when they'd tried to get him out, either. For Katniss, they'd tried, her ultimatum. Beetee used his big brain to concoct a labyrinthine plan, plots within plots, and she should have known. Like his elaborate scheme in the Arena, this plan also doesn't go quite according to. Oh, his gas vented and his bombs burst and Gale's group of volunteers grabbed everyone they could find—Johanna, Annie, a couple of Avoxes. Everyone to be found. But the one was nowhere to be found. Their information was wrong. Peeta wasn't in the Tribute Center. He wasn't anywhere.

So the question remains: Where's Peeta?

* * *

It's worse, the not knowing. The not seeing.

* * *

After that day, the world doesn't see Peeta again. So they don't see the Mockingjay again, either, no more wind beneath her wings. With Peeta disappeared and likely dead, Coin has no more leverage against her.

Yet even without Katniss, the people keep fighting, thirteen districts.

The Mockingjay sleeps, hibernating in this winter of the soul. Sleeps while the districts clash and the bombs fall. Sleeps while Gale and the rest of Squad 451 blaze a trail directly to the heart of the cancer that afflicts this country, the bloated monstrosity that preys off its own flesh, the flesh of its own children.

* * *

At long last, she wakes to a chorus of distant cheers, hoo-ra! At first, she thinks she's back in the Capitol, listening with Peeta to the raving hordes celebrate all night before the Games, _listen to them_. But then Katniss wades from the past, to the present, where she's not in the Capitol at all.

Somewhere in the silo above, people celebrate.

This is the first thing she hears, when she wakes.

The first thing she sees is Mother, slumped in a nearby chair. Katniss wants to shake her, to wake her, ask her if they found Peeta, are they cheering because Peeta? But something in the set of Mother's body, the looseness of her limbs, her frayed hair, it alerts Katniss to something deeper. She takes a closer look. Detritus surrounds her, a spilled blanket, tissues like moth balls. Mother has been here for a while. Waiting.

So Katniss waits as well. Curls her knees into her chest and clutches at her shins, impossible to tell the passing of time, no sun down here.

When Mother opens her eyes, she doesn't startle to find Katniss awake. Her eyes don't brighten with the knowledge, she doesn't come forward to clutch her hand. She just slumps and stares, hollow.

And Katniss knows.

The color of Mother's eyes is death.

Really, Katniss knew the moment she saw her sister's slim shoes sitting neatly by the door, her only pair.

"What happened?" she asks. Neutral and quiet, like she's asking about the weather.

Mother starts to cry. It's a long time before she can get it all out, and the story comes in fractures. She tells Katniss that her sister was in a square. In this square, a target, where there were children, where there was compassion, there were also firebombs.

Katniss thinks of Beetee. She thinks of Gale, of his theories about the best of ways to kill the most of people. She thinks about sirens, about her sister waiting for her the day their fathers died, sitting with her white hands folded, staying right in her seat at school, right where she was supposed to be.

Prim was supposed to stay here, safe in District 13, Katniss thinks. I volunteered to take her place. It should have been me there, in that square. I should be dead, a thousand times over. Not her. Her, so light and innocent and right. Not me, the dark one. I kill, she heals. I die, she lives. That was the deal.

I volunteered.

Those were the rules.

* * *

It makes sense now.

How Mother can just stop, a windup toy.

Without Prim, without Peeta, it's easy to just be still, to sink somewhere into herself so deep. She sleeps again, this time at the bottom of her father's lake. Open her eyes to the light, everything so dark and distant. Nothing can touch her down here, safe in this cocoon.

Wake up, and a nurse is drawing the curtain. Wake up, and a nurse is adjusting the worm in her arm, and she floats away. Wake up, and a nurse is flipping her over, undulating in the currents. Wake up, and there's someone standing at her door. Tall, broad. From the stance, she knows it's Gale.

She doesn't wait until her eyes adjust to the unbearable brightness, until she can see his face. She turns her head away. Yet she can still hear him, in the silence. His breath, his heart. She wonders if he'll speak. Try to tell her he's sorry. But he doesn't speak. There's nothing he can say. He knows this. Which is why, in only a few short moments (a lifetime), she hears his whisper of a walk away.

She sinks back, down and deep.

* * *

 _Wake up, sweetheart_.

This voice, she knows.

"Peeta?" she gasps and rasps. Her head lolls.

"No. It's me." His face swims. Hair blond, eyes blue. But a washed, watery blue.

"Where's Peeta?" she asks again, the only question.

"Well, shit," he says, scratching at his stubble. "They didn't tell you."

* * *

Old Man and his wife used to walk, arm in arm, around the square. Every day at noon, when classes let out for lunch. Old folk were a bit of an anachronism in District 12, even for the Townies. The children didn't quite know what to do with them, didn't know how to feel about them, these glimpses into their future. These time-warped, mind-addled, snow-headed creatures.

The wife's name was Birdie.

Old Man promenaded Birdie proudly, gently, like they were out a'courting, two kiddos in love. He spoke to her softly, a running commentary about the beauty of the day and how fine she looked, and hey, there's our neighbor, see our neighbor?

Some of the kids in the lunch hall, noses to the window, would laugh and point, imitating the man's prattle like mockingjays. But not Katniss, never Katniss. She could see it, the majestic sadness. The dignity in the face of death.

Birdie, of course, never said anything at all. She just shuffled along, unfocused gaze looking at something only she could see.

For her body was there.

But her mind was not.

* * *

The ragged man who calls her _sweetheart_ tells her that they found Peeta. He was buried deep in the bowels of the mansion, wires snaking from his every orifice.

He's alive, just barely.

"I need to see him," she demands, already extracting herself from the bed, prying and yanking.

"He's not here," Haymitch says, hands firm on her shoulders. "He's in the Capitol. They can't move him just yet."

"Then take me to the Capitol."

"Hold on," Haymitch says, hands still firm. "There's else something you should know."

The way he says it, she knows she's not going to like this something. Haymitch is nothing if not good at being the bearer of bad news.

And then he tells her, that they got Peeta out, alright. Only, he's not quite Peeta. Oh, it's him, it's his body. But his brain is, well. They did _things_ to him. They took out the parts of him that made him Peeta.

Haymitch tells her that Peeta, he's like Birdie now.

His body is here. His mind is not.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, Haymitch leaves her alone. He can never stay too long, his itch.

In his absence, the monitor talks to her. Sometimes it laughs. Sometimes it booms, a woman with silver hair. Today it's solemn, serious. On the screen is a snake.

She focuses long enough to see that the snake is Snow.

* * *

A hovercraft wings her to the Capitol. They're ready for her now, Snow's tribunal having concluded. The unanimous verdict: guilty. The punishment for his crimes, too numerous to name, is death.

Coin saved him for Katniss to kill, one of her conditions.

They escort her out to a plaza the size of District 12, dotted with gardens where bushes sprout ripe with fruit, ostensibly to add a bit of color. And fountains where pure, clean water gurgles for the sole purpose of what? Ambiance?

Katniss blinks in sunlight to see that a horde has gathered, more people than she's ever seen in one place. The day is clear and bright, like they're all just out for an afternoon stroll.

Everyone holds their breath as the Mockingjay steps up to where X marks her spot. President Snow stands but ten yards away, dressed in a pristine white suit, arms bound before him with a white cuff, white beard impeccable, a white rose in his lapel.

They hand Katniss a bow and a single arrow, tipped with gold. It's all she'll need, him so close. She draws back and takes careful, careful aim, at the white rose that nestles above his heart. Snow just stares at her, a slight smile. He seems to know something, something she doesn't.

"For Prim," she says, calmly and clearly. Then she releases, slightly to the left, and shoots Alma Coin, right through the eye.

Snow isn't the reason her sister is dead. Prim wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this war.

Those were the rules.

Snow throws back his shaggy head and laughs in utter delight.

The crowd surges through the barricade like a wave, ten thousand voices keening. Hands reach and reach to grab and rend. Ten thousand hands tear Snow apart, limb from limb. He's not laughing, not anymore. His suit, rent in pieces, is no longer white.

For a moment, Katniss thinks they're coming for her, too. Thinks that maybe she'll get trampled, this crush of humanity. But then someone picks her up, hoists her above the melee. She teeters for a moment, high in the sky, and then other hands reach out, like the ones that just demolished Snow. These hands buoy her up, passing her along. She's riding this wave, limbs like fronds. They're sequestering her, away from the soldiers of District 13, who are outraged at what she's done. No more hoo-rah's for her.

The hands deposit her at last on the outskirts of the crowd, gently gently. They release, they retreat, and then she's free, standing alone on her own two feet. She stands for a long moment, watching the roil and boil of the crowd, still agitating, shouting down someone who's tried to appropriate the microphone.

No one stops her as she strides away from the Capitol's beating heart, in its death throes. No one stops her as she hurries down a deserted thoroughfare, toward the white building directly ahead. No one stops her as she whooshes through the doors, the front desk completely, irresponsibly unmanned.

One whiff and it's like she's back in thirteen. Hospitals all smell the same. Unlike thirteen, this one is well-lit, towering glass walls through which leak life and light. Like thirteen, the place seems deserted, everyone having played hooky to see the execution of the century.

She learns from a quick glance at a chart that the room she seeks is in this wing, down this corridor.

The rooms she passes burst with increasing color—balloons, flowers, finger paintings encroaching like ivy. Evidence that the Capitol still can't cure all ills. In some rooms, she sees figures, some seated, some prone, all swaddled in bed. In every room, a monitor plays, the cacophony in the square.

Finally, she arrives, the room at the end of the hall. This door is closed, so she peeps through the porthole to see that this room is completely white, completely sterile, as though no one lives here at all. Empty except for a single bed, a slight form but a few lumps under a blanket. Empty because Peeta's family is dead, no one to send him flowers or cookies or balloons. No one to sit, holding his hand, while Snow dies a terrible death. Someone, trying to be helpful, left his monitor playing, the aftermath of the execution. Plutarch is clutching at the microphone now, voice bright with hysteria.

Katniss shuts him off.

Soft light emanates from somewhere else in the room, casting eerie blue shadows on Peeta's face, smudging the skin under his eyes purple. He looks like a cadaver. While she's been recuperating and regaining her strength, he…hasn't.

Morphling goes _drip_ , _drip_ , _drip_ in a little clear bag, the one snaking a tendril into Peeta's right arm. The veins on his arm are engorged, greedily drinking nirvana. Not a large dose, they told her. Just enough to let him rest.

She feels sick.

He can't do it for himself, so she does it for him. She steps over and rips the tube from his arm, quick, so he doesn't feel it. Alarms go off, somewhere, but she ignores them. She pulls in a wheelchair she passed along the way and somehow manages to maneuver Peeta into it, bundling him up with the blanket. Then she wheels him right back down that corridor, back through the hospital doors, head held high, as though she has every right.

Because really, she does.

They amble six blocks to the train station. Amble, she tries, but she shakes, legs like a newborn fawn.

She buys two tickets from the automated booth, with nothing but her thumbprint, and then they sit, alone, in the waiting area. Peeta slowly crumbles in his chair, and she puts her hand on his shoulder as a pillow for his sagging head.

When the next train whooshes to a stop, they're the first ones aboard.

Then they're going home.

* * *

On the train, Peeta sleeps against a window, head tilted so his too-long hair curls into his eyes. He looks so young, like the boy who threw her warm, toasty bread.

When they reach their station—a shack huddled against the tracks—she's never been more glad to see it. It feels like they're a thousand miles from the Capital, far from its sleek, hard lines. For the first time in a long time, she feels it. Hope.

For you see, no one stopped them.

Not the Peacekeepers they passed a few blocks out of the hospital. Not the other passengers, who helped her maneuver Peeta's chair into the train car and then watched carefully, respectfully. Not the conductor, who eyed them and their tickets without comment.

She got Peeta out.

She went back for him, like she always should have.

They're free.


	3. Chapter 3

Reality inexorably smothers the high she'd felt on having sprung Peeta from the Capitol. It starts in the form of stairs. Three, to be exact. That's all there are, leading up to the porch that wraps around her house in the Victor's Village, the only one that remains, a single tombstone in a sea of bones. Across the way, Peeta's brief former life is but a gruesome snarl of concrete and rebar scattered with charred lumps of wood.

With a bit of rope and some luck, Katniss gets Peeta and his chair into the house. She breathes and Peeta lists as they contemplate yet more stairs, many more stairs. She's so tired, so very tired, but these stairs lead to a real bed, an attached bath, and a window like he likes.

So she leaves him slumped in his chair, right there in the entryway like a wayward shoe, while she takes a brief foray into the nearby trees, wrestling back branches. She fashions a makeshift gurney, the way she and Gale sometimes did to transport larger game, like the occasional wild boar. It takes her several tipsy, heart-jolting tries, but she's eventually able to use it to haul Peeta bodily up the stairs, strapped to the sled like a carcass. She shouldn't be able to do this, except he's so very thin. Then more wrangling of limbs until she can slip him onto the bed, bundling him in warm and soft. Through it all, he remains pliable and peaceful, like he's just taking a quick nap.

And that's about when the red phone starts ringing, folks having finally figured out where she went. For a while, she answers it. She listens to the words on repeat. What have you done, what were you thinking. Some of them mean about Coin, some of them mean about Peeta.

Effie tells her that now she's really done it. Haymitch tells her he's going to speak on her behalf, at her trial. _He's with me_ , she tells them, when they ask about Peeta. Mother offers to come. So does Haymitch. She turns them down, these half-hearted gestures. Both of them need to be anywhere but here, where there's nothing. Mother backs down only after Katniss lets her arrange for regular checkups for Peeta. "Make sure he drinks plenty of liquid," she says. "And rotate him once a day." Like he's a turkey, roasting over a spit.

The phone keeps ringing. She unplugs it, after she's talked to everyone who matters. But the seeds of doubt they've planted start to fester in her thoughts. The first day, she looks in on him often, every hour. But there's no change. Peeta just sleeps. Well after the meds wear off, well after the morphling shakes fade, well past the time when he should have woken up. She thinks back to a time when he religiously rose before the sun. He'd always been an early riser, a product of his family's vocation.

Days in, she starts to second guess. She'd saved Peeta from the hands of yet more doctors, more tests. But now what? How can she hope to succeed where the world's top medical minds had not? What can she possibly do for Peeta that others can't? She doesn't know, but she knows she has to try. She has to try because Peeta would do it for her. Already had done it for her.

The day after father's funeral, mother didn't get out of bed. Katniss tells Prim that it's okay, Mother just needs time to grieve. They went to school that day without food. Day after day, she turned Seamfolk away from their door with an, "I'm sorry, she's not well."

There was no money, so there was no food. There was also no Mother. She just sat there, clinging to the arms of father's chair (like a child clinging to a stuffed animal), and did absolutely nothing while her daughters starved. Katniss remembers screaming at her, even slapping her. _Wake up, please wake up_. But nothing could reach her, wherever she'd gone.

Behind a bakery, Katniss dug through trash for scraps. It was Peeta's bread—baptized by rain—that had given her the strength to duck under the fence. Her first time alone, without father. She'd been terrified, afraid that she wouldn't do it right, that she'd get caught.

Peeta had done it for her, given her the hope to go on. Now, she'll do the same for him. Like her mother, Peeta will get better.

She has to believe this.

* * *

"Peeta," she says. "Peeta."

She cups a bowl, warm between her hands. It's soup, the kind she used to make out of nothing but herbs and water, in the lean times. Holds it up to his chin, in hopes that the pungent smell will wake him. Earlier, she got him to drink a bit of water, dribbled in his mouth, a reflex.

Enticed by her herbs, Peeta stirs at last, mumbling something incoherent, although he doesn't quite crack his eyes, heavy with his long sleep. Still, she takes this as a good sign, lifting a spoon to his parched lips. Eventually, he sips and swallows, one spoonful at a time, almost half an hour to get through half the bowl.

But this is okay because Katniss is so very glad that Peeta is drinking and he's eating and he's mumbling things even if they're still incoherent. This is good, this is great, this is the start of something. The doctors were wrong, they have to be. Peeta will snap out this, you'll see. He just needs time and sleep and then we'll just see.

And she's telling herself these things with a fanatic fervor, almost as though she can will them to be so. Right up until the point where Peeta's had enough of the soup, turning his head away. And when he shifts and curls back into himself, that's when she feels it—the sheet beneath her knee is chilled and wet.

It's not just from sweat.

She presses her fist so hard into her mouth that she draws blood.

Katniss leaves him lying in it, viciously ransacking sheets from too many other bedrooms in this huge house. Then she strips Peeta's bed from around him, rolling him from side to side as needed, as she's done for all these days, heeding her mother's warning about bed sores.

His soiled sheets sit in an accusing heap, right where she'd dropped them. If Hazelle were here, she'd know what to do, how you clean this sort of thing, and the mattress besides. But she's too embarrassed to request the aid of some new laundry woman whose name she doesn't yet know. Too many new names. Too many new faces. And so many faces she expects to see but doesn't.

For days, Katniss scrubs bedding in the tub, hanging it to dry on rope she strings across the yard, white flutters in the breeze like a surrender. She lines Peeta's mattress with plastic, but it crinkles loudly when he shifts and doesn't always help. Days stretch into a week, then two, then three. She tells herself that what she's doing now is no different than when she helped Peeta relieve himself in a cave, into an empty can of stew.

But she doesn't fool herself.

It's different.

She knows it's different.

Everything is different. In that cave, she wasn't afraid to ask for help.

She feels buried in it, an avalanche of sodden sheets.

* * *

When the news is back on, one of the first segments mentions them, a quick soundbite delivered by none other than Effie Trinket. "As spokesperson for our dearest Victors," she trills, "I'm here to inform you that Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have retired to District 12. They ask for privacy in these upcoming months, as they adjust back to life in their home." Then she sheds the sober and rallies with a hearty, "Back to you, Caesar."

"There you have it," someone says, and Katniss almost doesn't recognize him, this chameleon. He looks like a different person, having shed his hair, teeth, and tan, his gift for sensing which way the wind blows. He looks small.

Somewhere off-camera, Effie gushes, "I've always wanted to say that."

Flickerman signs off with, "We wish them all the best."

* * *

There's a knock on the door. The sound sends a shiver, so much for the request for privacy. Katniss creeps to the landing, peeking to see. Too early yet, for the doctor. Probably a beetle. Or maybe someone else from the Capitol, reconsidered, come to take Peeta away from her at last. But the shape through the frosted glass is too stooped, too gray to be Capitol.

"Hello, girl," says Greasy Sae. Her sharp eyes peer from a face scarred with time and too many years in the mines.

For the first time, Katniss thinks about what she's wearing, her hair, can't remember the last time she washed it. She's been so focused on Peeta that she's lost herself.

"When I heard you were here," Sae continues, "I came straightaway to offer my services. Would be happy to cook and clean for the two of you, at least until you get back on your feet."

Katniss doesn't let herself glance up the stairs, to where he is. It's tempting, so very tempting, to take Sae up on her offer.

"Thank you," she says. "But we're fine. We just need to be alone for a while."

"Well then," Sae says, following the flit of her eyes. "You know where to find me."

The rest of the day, Katniss braces herself, half expecting the phone to ring or the beetles to show up or the hovercrafts to drone overhead, taking aerials at least. But after Sae, the day remains peaceful, almost as though someone shelters her. Or perhaps what's left of the media has real things to report on, for once.

* * *

That night, someone comes for her as she sleeps.

She awakens with screams in her throat and darkness in her eyes. Surges up but she can't see, this dark, alien cavern, walls shrinking in. But she knows, she _knows_ that she's not alone in the room, that some slinking, stinking mutt has slithered into the house and up the stairs and into her room and is on a final dash for her bed. It would be just like Snow to have sent some assassin to make the long trek from the Capitol to 12, arriving only now, well after his death, now that the monitor told everyone exactly where she is. A final countermove, the last laugh.

Frantic, she flings herself from her bed, jerks on the lamp, and dives for her closet, where she keeps her bow. And when she whirls, time nicked, bow nocked, she sees it.

The empty room.

The soft light of her lamp explores every crook, every cranny, nowhere for a mutt to hide. Her room is emphatically empty. The night is completely quiet, completely calm. Not a peep from Peeta these past weeks, as though he no longer dreams.

Yet still she stands and breathes, overcome by her racing heart, aiming her arrow directly at the dark portal of her open door, beyond which loom indistinct shapes. As her breath calms, rational brain catching up to the madness, she begins to think that maybe, just maybe, she'd dreamed it all. There is no mutt. No final plot. A nightmare, that's all it was, the stress of the day, go back to sleep.

She's about to lower her bow when she hears it—the same soft sound that started all this. This time, she understands that the sound doesn't come from below, from some new horror snaking its way toward her.

An irrational, impossible thought: it's Peeta. And indeed, the sound she hears comes from his room across the hall, from beyond the door she keeps open as a bridge between their worlds, the better to hear him. Peeta _moves_. She can hear it now, the soft slough of quilts as Peeta frees himself. The creak of his bed as he shifts and pushes off. The pad of his bare feet. Peeta's _walking_. The bow slips from her fingers and clatters to the ground but that's so okay, it's so incredibly okay because Peeta's moving and he's walking and he's coming toward her because he's heard, her screams in the night. And he's coming to her, the way he always will. Because he gets them, too, oh, he gets them, too.

Her heart beats _Peeta_ (lub-dub) and she's desperate and giddy for it, for Peeta to come crashing through her door, hair and eyes wild, feet racing, heart racing to make sure she's alright. And she'll assure him that it's fine, she's fine, it was just a nightmare. And then she'll ask him, what she always asks him and he'll say, what he always says. This is what she thinks (hopes), poised before the portal of her doorway, the one that will deliver Peeta back to her at last.

And she waits and she waits until she realizes that, although Peeta is moving and he's walking, he's not coming. At least, not to her room. Instead, he shuffles and staggers within the boundaries of his own room, toward a different door, toward a different room. And the next sound that she hears—a private, almost musical sound—is one that, despite her initial disappointment, she's never been more grateful for in her life.

She sobs herself back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

In the morning, Peeta's bed is empty, stripped even of his sheets. Yet he hasn't gone far—she finds him curled in the window seat, bedding trailing from him like a cloak. He looks like Buttercup in the morning sun. He looks like himself.

Hunter-stepping closer, not wanting to startle him, Katniss sees that Peeta's eyes are _open_. She'd almost forgotten, what color they are. In her excitement, she doesn't immediately register that he doesn't react when she draws close, settling beside him. He just keeps staring dully at something that's no longer there. His bedroom faces the rubble, like some alien vista. She wonders what he makes of it.

"Peeta?" she asks, but he doesn't answer. Not even a flick of anything on his face.

His eyes are open, but they don't see.

* * *

Slowly, as sun starts its siren song, Peeta's circadian rhythms begin to assert themselves. Soon, he's up before her every morning, watching the sun rise, bleeding the sky a soft orange.

"Look, Peeta. It's your favorite color." She's started doing this now, talking to him at every opportunity. She's hoping he can hear, from somewhere in this waking coma.

She even begins to entice him down to the kitchen, the smell of food. It's not much, cornmeal mash the way her mother used to make it, but he sits in front of it. He picks up his spoon and uses it to eat, drinks his milk, some muscle memory.

It's not much, but it's everything.

* * *

The Capitol doctor is due with the train, making a house call, as Mother promised. But they're not quite ready, the house a disaster, and Peeta is filthy, hasn't bathed in weeks. He smells as bad as he once did, lying for three days in a swamp. Worse. She's cleaned around him, but she hasn't cleaned him.

She's found that Peeta responds when she draws him by the hand, docile like a little lamb. Fingers too limp to grasp, so she usually encircles his wrist. It's how she gets him downstairs in the morning and back up at night.

Peeta doesn't like the idea of the tub, not one bit, eyes rolling white, clutching at the door frame like she's asking him to jump out of a hovercraft. Something about the water. _Electrocution_ , one of his doctors had said.

"Okay," she says. "Okay."

She leads him out to the porch, gives him a sweet to distract, and then tosses a bucket over him, surprise! He lurches and shivers like a bedraggled cat while she shampoos and scrubs every spot she can reach. Then she bundles him in the fluffiest of towels and sits him in front of the monitor, the only thing she's found that seems to catch his elusive attention.

When the doctor arrives, he comes bearing gifts, bags that bulge with untold curiosities. At first, Peeta seems intrigued, sitting patiently as the good doctor pulls forth all sorts of shiny equipment and colorful vials. But when he unveils a silver helmet, the kind you slip over your head, Peeta goes very still. His eyes follow it steadily, as though it's some wild beast.

"Not to worry, Peeta," the doctor assures. "This is just to take some pictures of your brain. It won't hurt."

Peeta seems to relax at the sound of gentle and kind, and continues to sit quietly. Until the moment when the doctor tries to put it on his head. Then Peeta reacts, even more violently than he had to the bath. The offensive helmet goes flying, clattering into a corner, and it's all Katniss and the doctor can do to restrain him. Despite the torture and the atrophy, fear lends an unnatural strength.

"Next time," the doctor puffs as he jabs Peeta in the upper arm, "I'll bring an orderly. I didn't expect to find him awake."

Together, they maneuver a groggy Peeta to the couch, where Katniss holds his head still in her lap. She watches as the doctor inspects the bright map of his mind. Or not so bright, as he explains.

"This is a normal brain." He shows her a colorful tapestry, lit up like the sun dancing on her father's lake. Then he shows her Peeta's brain. Even she can see the dark areas, like oceans on a map. He shakes his head. "There's no change," he says. "Not since his last scan."

Katniss can't believe it. "But, he's awake. He responded to your equipment."

The doctor shines a light in Peeta's eyes. His pupils are saucers. "Has he said anything?"

"No. Just…noise."

The doctor finishes the check-up. The doctor is solemn and very, very clear. "Miss Everdeen, I don't want to give you false hope. What those so-called doctors did to him was reprehensible. It's not likely that Peeta will recover."

"But this was done to him. Can't it be undone?" In this age of neurosurgeries and body polishes, she can hardly believe that there's not more they can do. Peeta woke up. He feeds himself. He's not gone. She won't accept it.

"The, ah, procedure they used on him was experimental." The doctor shifts, uncomfortable now. "And unfortunately, Snow made it…difficult for us to replicate it." In one of his final acts before he was captured, Snow had poisoned almost all his staff, including those who had attended Peeta. "We're working on reproducing the effect. But there's no guarantee the process can be reversed."

 _Reproducing_ , he says.

"I didn't agree to any mutts—" It's medical best practice, mutts created for a specific purpose, bred to die. The Capitol's influence still lingers, years before they can suck all the poison out of the wound that is Panem.

"Quite right," the doctor quickly assures her. "No mutts. We're using more conventional means, revising some techniques from before the original uprising. It's slow going, but there is some promise."

Uncharted territory, he says, and it sounds so exciting, like taking off through the valley as she and Gale had always planned.

"I'll be back in a month," the doctor promises. "Or call me, if there's any change."

When the doctor's drugs release him, Peeta surges up, gurgling and wild. He knocks over a lamp and three chairs before he finally calms down enough to understand that the doctor, with his wicked tools, is gone.

Still, Peeta won't let her near him. He slinks carefully around the house, clutching at the walls, peering around every corner.

* * *

She escapes to the forest like she used to drown herself in one of Father's old sweaters. It's comfortable. It's home. After the crushing news, she can't spend one more minute in that house, clawing to get out. She desperately needs this, air in her lungs. And she craves real meat, not that processed stuff that's still delivered every two weeks by the train.

Even though the animals have grown fat and lazy, she hurries and makes too much noise, scaring away the smarter game. She kills two squirrels (awkward kills through torsos and necks) and misses five. Here, in her forest, she should feel free. But she doesn't. She's tethered to District 12 as assuredly as she ever was. The fence is down, but its ghost is still there, around her heart.

She tells herself that she chose this. She chose him.

Choices can be wrong.

When she returns, she panics momentarily because she can't see Peeta's head over the backyard fence. She'd just left him to roam free, like a pet goat. The gate is still firmly latched, but perhaps he'd been able to climb over. His water canteen is on the porch, tipped to one side, but he's not there with it.

"Peeta?" she calls. Fear hurries her footsteps, around first one side of the house, to an empty patch of dirt and a brimming panic. Then farther around the house, where she finds him in the side yard, digging a shallow hole. Nowhere near the fence, so it's not like he was trying to escape.

For the first time since the doctor left, he lets her draw close, lets her propel him back into the house. Comes when she calls him to supper, although he wrinkles at the squirrel and won't take a bite, eating around it instead. And he lets her clip his fingernails that night, to get the dirt out.

* * *

They have a routine. It goes like this: They watch the sun rise. Katniss makes their breakfast and then leaves Peeta to putter in the house or the yard, depending on his mood. She hunts for just long enough to snag supper, then returns to make sure he gets lunch, at noon on the dot or watch out. The afternoon brings chores and cleaning up after Peeta, the messes he makes. Supper is meat and potatoes or meat and rice, then the monitor in Peeta's room until he falls asleep.

Through it all, she talks to him, a constant prattle, anything and everything. She's never been good at saying things, never been good with words. But for Peeta, she tries. Maybe words are what will bring him back.

* * *

Next month, the doctor shakes his head. "No change."

* * *

Haymitch calls. She answers only after he lets the phone ring about a hundred times, a secret code only they would understand. She used to do the same to him, when they were neighbors, tit for tat.

"Well," he says, by way of greeting, "they've agreed to let you live." She feels nothing. "On one condition, that you stay in District 12."

"Done. And Peeta?" Peeta, who's been sitting on the lip of the porch for hours. Just sitting, doodling a bit in the dust.

"They've released him into your care, as his fiancee." The word jars. She's almost forgotten, that they were engaged, once. They're about as far from engaged now as you can get. Then Haymitch goes gruff, the way he does when it gets personal. "How is he?"

She considers this, her answer. She wants to tell Haymitch the truth. She wants to tell him what the doctor said. She wants to tell him that Peeta isn't Peeta. That he doesn't speak and he doesn't smile and he can't even _look_ at her. That she has to feed him and bathe him and pick up after him. She wants to tell him that she's scared and alone and that she's not sure she can do this, whatever it is she's trying to do.

But she doesn't say any of these things.

"He's different," she says.

Haymitch is quiet for a long moment, as if tasting the flavor of her words. "I'll bet," he says, dryly. "Well, if anyone can find his way back to you, that one can. I've never seen a boy willing to give up so much for love."

It hurts, to think about a boy who was once in love. Of what he gave up, for her.

"What about you?" she deflects. She's not sure, if she wants him back in twelve. Not sure that she wants him to see, what Peeta has become.

"I'm staying here for now. A few things I need to take care of." It doesn't hurt, she thinks, that in the Capitol he'll never run out of booze.

And that's the extent of it, their communication. Haymitch doesn't call again, debt paid. He kept them alive, that's all he'd ever wanted to do, all he'd ever promised her.

* * *

Next month, the doctor says, "No change."

And the month after that.

And the month after that.

* * *

Katniss has never wanted children. She's known this from an early age, when her peers all played with dolls, swaddling them and dressing them and holding them so very close. These same peers would jump at any chance to hold a Seam newborn, the ones that survived. They'd coo and kiss and Katniss would stand stiffly on the periphery and feel vaguely uneasy, that she lacks the same instinct to _love_.

Sometimes, despite the subtle stiffness of her body, someone would hand her a child. "For practice," they'd say. And she'd do her best to arrange its limbs and prop its head the way you're supposed to, the way she's seen others do. She remembers, how natural a bow felt, the first time she'd held it. And how unnatural it feels, to hold a child.

She was always deathly afraid that she'd drop it, that she'd break it. So she would hold on for dear life, the requisite amount of time, and then pass it off to the next pair of willing arms, usually right after the child started wailing, sensing somehow her deficiencies.

Of course, she got better at it. By necessity. When mother stopped being a mother and decided to be a stone instead.

Life, it keeps handing her children. First Prim. Now Peeta. This Peeta, he's but a child. But, unlike a real child, he doesn't seem to grow. He can't seem to learn.

She tries to give him a bath, again and again, with the same results.

* * *

They have good days. Days where the routine works and everything just falls in to place. But there are dark days, too, the ones where she can hardly get out of bed, and she considers it. She's got rope, from the snares she still makes. Finnick taught her once, how to tie it just so. She could do it, out in the woods, where no one could stop her, lobbed up over a sturdy branch. Or she could head out, to the bushes that grow thick and dense with them, the berries that her father warned her never to eat.

Sometimes she wonders, what Peeta would do, if he found her in the tub, water tinged pink.

Yet somehow, on those days, she does get out of bed. She stands. She goes downstairs to make Peeta his breakfast. She heads out to the woods, where she studiously avoids the bushes, with the plump, fat berries like accusing eyes.

Routine.

It's how you deal with babies and animals and the mentally ill.

It's also how you stay sane.


	5. Chapter 5

Peeta was never particularly agile, not with his leg, but he's downright clumsy now. Knocks his prosthetic into the furniture often, staggering. Falls down a lot, and forgets to catch himself before he hits the ground.

Then one morning as she's downstairs preparing their breakfast, she hears his tentative steps in the hallway. Slow and unsteady, as though he's using the wall. Sometimes, he's able to attach his leg correctly, some muscle memory. Sometimes, he has trouble.

He appears at the top of the steps.

"Peeta," she warns. She's not sure, but it looks like his leg is on backward. "Wait," she says.

He doesn't listen, takes the first step. And that's the only step he takes, as his fake foot catches on the lip, pitching him forward. In less than two seconds, he's head over heads down the stairs, limbs flying every which way, landing heavily.

"Peeta?" she calls, him lying so still. When she gets to him, he's in the throes, gasping like a fish, air knocked plumb out. "Breathe, Peeta, just breathe, relax," she pleads. She doesn't know how to do for him what Finnick did, once. Helpless, she can only watch as his face tinges blue. Somehow, he finds his elusive breath, latches on to it with two hands and takes a deep, shuddering inhale. He's dazed but seems otherwise unharmed. Even so, she helps him to the couch, tells him to "Stay" and then dials her mother, three times before her shaking fingers get the number right.

Mother briskly tells her how to check him for injuries. No concussion, his pupils seem to be the right size. His bones all seem to be in the right place, her running her hands over him like a goat. No blood anywhere that she can see. Although there is a place, on his hip, where the skin seems tender, likely from where he landed.

"Keep him awake," Mother says. "And make sure he drinks plenty of—"

"Liquids, I know."

Later, there's a bruise the size of her hand on Peeta's hip. She can hardly look away, this storm beneath flesh. So she begins the process of child-proofing their house, the way she's seen other families do it. Drags all unnecessary decor and furniture out the back, to the storage shed. Blunts the edges of the remaining furniture with fabric and tape. Installs gates on each end of the staircase to keep Peeta where she wants him.

Even still, she later finds him in the living room, sitting with his head in his hands, blood between his fingers. He apparently tripped over himself and fell, headlong, into the brick of the fireplace.

She stitches him up, clumsily, and has to swat away his fingers for days. He wants to scratch at the stitches, pull them out.

Sometimes, it's like he's trying to hurt himself.

* * *

The gate creaks in the breeze.

She stares down at the sliver of green beyond the weathered wood. As she watches, a gust of wind bangs it shut, startling her like a gunshot.

Her gut grows warm, the first stirrings of something. Had she closed it this morning, after she left? It had been cold, she'd remembered. Upon stepping out of the house, she'd fumbled with her gloves. Dropped her bow. She'd been distracted.

Katniss spins in a slow circle, realizing with dizzying dread that Peeta could have wandered toward any point on the compass. The woods, the town or—goosebumps—the mines. Every which way she looks, there are any number of ways he can hurt himself. Or things that will hurt him. And it will be cold tonight, too cold.

She forces herself to be meticulous, to start with a small search radius and gradually broaden out. He's nowhere in the yard or in the house or in the shed. Doesn't seem to be crawling about in any of the nearby rubble. So she expands out, hastening along a path she hopes Peeta followed, away from the Victor's Village.

In town, buildings seem to have risen from the earth overnight, like weeds. The few people she encounters startle and stare, but she hurries past them, no time to chat. She must look crazy, smudges of dirt on her face from where she's wiped at sweat, hair escaping her braid.

She doesn't want to ask them for help, doesn't want to ask if they've seen a lost boy. Doesn't want them to know that he's the type of boy who can now get lost. They all remember him for who he once was, and she thinks he'd like that.

A bustle of light and warmth draws her, lumber rising like the ribs of a behemoth, light pouring from every orifice. She sees people moving every which way, working together as a collective, raising the walls of this place. She scans the faces of them all, these industrious little ants.

She's not sure, but she thinks this might be the new bakery, those bricks there the foundation for a new oven. She almost doesn't recognize Peeta at first, he blends in. They've given him a yellow hat and a tool belt without any tools. This, of course, is where Peeta would have been drawn, to the nexus of all these people, all this light.

She looks around, at Thom and his crew, many she recognizes from the Seam, many she doesn't. And she can see, in their faces, in the way that they smile kindly at Peeta as he flits from person to person, peering over their shoulders—they _know_. Somehow, they know he's not the Peeta he once was. And yet somehow, they're okay with it. Maybe none of them is who they once were, either.

Katniss just stands and watches Peeta with them for a long, long time.

When it's time to go home, he doesn't resist, sleepy and sated. She lets him keep the hat, the belt. He even lets her hold his hand as they walk back, his eyes on the stars.

The next morning, she closes the gate firmly behind her.

* * *

Burdens shared with others do become lighter. But others bring new burdens.

This time, Greasy Sae doesn't ask. She just bustles right in, arms overflowing with this and that. She proceeds to set up shop, and soon the kitchen brims with a steady stream of chatter and the smell of spices. Katniss realizes she's forgotten what real food tastes like.

Sae talks about nothing at all, but it's the first real conversation Katniss has had in a long time. Even Peeta is enticed into the kitchen by the smell. Katniss looks up in shock to see a figure in the doorway. He's staring at the boiling pot on the stove. Standing there, gripping the door frame, he's a young child clinging to his mother's skirts.

Katniss doesn't know how to arrange her limbs. The room—which had previously been a haven—now seems stifling, five sizes too small.

Greasy Sae doesn't miss a beat. She plops down a bowl, a spoon. "Soup's up."

Peeta eats two, then three helpings of the rich stew. Some of it dribbles down his chin. Katniss dabs it off when Sae is up getting him more. He'd never asked for more of her feeble attempts at stew.

* * *

A few weeks after Greasy Sae starts coming to the house, a little girl is in tow. Literally, as she's connected to Sae by a string around her wrist. Katniss watches them approach from the kitchen window. Every so often, Sae gently tugs the string, directing the girl's attention back to their walk.

"This is Hana," Sae says, carefully disentangling the string and freeing the little girl into the kitchen.

Hana doesn't look at Katniss. She doesn't say hello. Instead, she heads directly for a nearby cabinet, opening and closing it. She proceeds down the row, opening each door in turn and running a finger over every pot, every pan. Her fingers explore every crook and cranny.

When Hana crosses the threshold into the living room, Katniss feels uneasy. Peeta's in there, sitting in the middle of the floor, gazing up at the projector, which Katniss has set to some toons he likes. She feels uneasy. Despite his frailty, Peeta is still so _big_. And the little girl, with her two little braids, reminds her too much of someone else.

Sae has already started on the stew, back turned, seemingly unconcerned. Peeta's eyes are still glued to the projection, on which a cat is chasing a mouse. Hana reaches the cabinet below the projector. Opens it. Closes it. Swings around to face Peeta. She's in his line of sight now. He's the only thing in the room she hasn't explored, the only uncharted territory.

In two steps, she's standing in front of him.

In two steps, Katniss could be between them. She's poised, ready. Behind her, Sae hums a soothing tune.

Peeta sees her now, this little girl with two dark braids who's just stepped right into his personal space, right into his face. They stare at each other. Peeta's hands curl into fists. He stares at her, blinking quickly.

Hana reaches out and puts a small hand on his cheek.

Peeta trembles. Katniss has stopped breathing. Even Sae is silent, head craned over her shoulder at the unfolding scene.

Hana puts the other hand on his other cheek. She's cupping his face, frowning into his eyes as though looking for something only she can see.

And then, something happens.

Something terrible. Something wonderful.

Peeta smiles.

His face lights up with the force of it, the first time Katniss has seen him smile since…before. And, for a split second, he looks like Peeta. The real Peeta. The expression on his face, it's one she recognizes. He's looking at Hana like he used to look at her.

His smile breaks the spell, and Hana's hands drop. She wanders back to the kitchen, fingers trailing.

Peeta watches her go. Then he stands and follows, rapt.

At dinner, Peeta's _riveted_. He barely touches his food, instead focused on Hana the entire meal. As though every gesture, every sound she makes is the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. When Katniss tries to encourage him to eat, he shrugs her off, mouth firmly closed against the spoon she tries to bring to his lips.

When Katniss and Sae start clearing the table, Peeta joins Hana on the floor, where she's playing with some pots and a wooden spoon. Katniss is rinsing the plates in hot, soapy water when she hears it—a laugh. Peeta's laugh.

She drops the plate, splashing water everywhere, and rounds the kitchen island to see that Peeta and Hana are wearing the pots on their heads. From beneath Peeta's pot, there's another sound now, a low murmur. It's his voice—his gentle voice—but the words are meaningless babble. Something about a hat.

He tips back the pot, peeking slyly at Hana, and then drops it back with a smile, so clever.

Watching them, Katniss doesn't understand why her stomach is so tight and hot, like she's swallowed a burning coal. It's only later, as she watches Hana wave shyly goodbye to Peeta and his fingers twitch in response, that she understands why.

In the few hours she was here, this little girl—this simpleton—reached Peeta when she could not. She made him smile. She made him laugh.

Katniss is jealous.


	6. Chapter 6

So it goes that Greasy Sae teaches Katniss how to cook. And she also teaches her other things, like how to care for Peeta. Oh, they don't speak of it, not directly, but Katniss sees, the way Sae treats Hana, her patience, the way she speaks to her, like when she's gone somewhere else in her head. Sae always reaches out and puts something in her hands. Something simple, like a spoon or piece of twine.

The next time Katniss finds Peeta out in the yard, staring vacantly at the fence, she plucks a dandelion from the rapidly decaying lawn. She twirls it between her fingers for a moment, then brings it up and blows. That catches it, Peeta's attention. He watches, with interest, as she plucks another of the weeds, shows him how to make it disintegrate. He almost smiles.

Each day before supper, Peeta plucks his own dandelion and gives it to Hana. Each day, they blow and giggle together as the fronds scatter to the wind, lost.

Sae also keeps Katniss informed of the goings on in the new community. The rebuilding efforts, who's getting married, who's with child. Many names she doesn't know, doesn't want to know. "We elected Thom mayor," she says, a name Katniss does know.

It's fitting, that a former miner be mayor, a post previously denied to anyone from the Seam. Thom was always one of the good ones. He dared help Gale home, after the whipping post. He told her about Madge.

One day, Sae announces, "There's a new baker in town. From District 4." She says it just like she's brought other news in the past. But they both know this is not just any news. There's a baker in town. For the first time in district memory, he's not a Mellark.

Sae continues on, not waiting for a response, telling her that they're holding an inaugural ceremony in the town square, to christen the new oven.

When Sae and Hana leave for the evening, Katniss escapes to the woods, to the closest trees, far enough in that she can no longer see the house. Far enough that she can pretend she's out here, so very alone.

She stands for a moment, breathing in cool and green.

Then she screams, an ugly, guttural thing. She rages. She kicks at bark until her shins are bruised and bloody. She _hates_ him, this new baker, come to take Peeta's place. Pummels the tree like she'd like to pummel this man. Like she'd like to strangle herself, so weak, so useless.

Then she gathers herself up, dries her tears, smoothes her hair, and goes back inside.

Peeta didn't even notice she was gone.

* * *

Katniss pulls a dress from the back of her closet, the only one she owns. She struggles with her hair, knotting it up into a bit of a bird's nest, lacking mother's gift.

When she's presentable, she turns to the somewhat tedious task of making Peeta the same. She wrestles a nice shirt over his head, the one that used to make his eyes resplendent, when he smiled at her. She slaps his hands away until he lets her comb his hair. It's getting too long now, falling into his eyes.

Then she takes him by the hand and leads him to town. He's jittery and curious, their first field trip. She has to direct him, again and again, back to the road, his steps tending to wander toward each new bush or tree.

When they arrive in the new town square, the inauguration is in full swing. Everybody's there. The baker has already been using his oven in preparation for the event. There are cookies and pastries and muffins for all. Katniss nibbles on a cookie. It's plain and doesn't taste as good as Peeta's used to. Peeta doesn't seem to notice. He eats three.

From the fringes, she watches the new baker, dark-haired and round, moving through the crowd, meeting his new patrons, encouraging them to sample his wares. He's boisterous and friendly, not like the quiet men she's used to.

She wants to hate this new baker, for moving in to town and taking over a piece of the community that belongs to someone else. She wants to leave before he comes this way, before she has to talk to him, nothing to say.

But when she grips Peeta's wrist, he's stubborn and shakes her off. They haven't had sugar in so long, he's animated, buzzing. Overwhelmed by the crowd and the laughter and the sugar. She won't be able to drag him away from the sweets without causing a scene.

Then it's too late.

"And who's this?" the man says, extending a hand to her. It's soft, like dough.

"Katniss," she barks. "And this is Peeta."

To his credit, the baker's face doesn't betray anything other than friendly welcome. Someone must have warned him, must have already pointed them out in the crowd. The crazy tributes. The boy who can no longer bake bread.

"Well met, Katniss," he says. "I'm Clay." Then he turns to Peeta. "And Peeta. Mellark, is it?"

Peeta ignores him, reaching for another cookie. There are crumbs in the corner of his mouth, on his shirt. Clay merely eyes him with interest.

"Glad to see you like my wares, son. Although I'm sure you've had better. Where I come from, the Mellarks are famous." His eyes dart to hers. "Ah, were. Rumor has it they made the fanciest cakes in all the districts."

Although he didn't intend them as such, the words stab at Katniss' insides. She's silent, willing him to move on to the next well-wisher. Instead, Clay hovers, clearly more to say.

"You know, we could use some help in the kitchen." He's looking at Peeta, but he's really asking her.

"He won't be much help."

"It's in his blood," Clay says. "Maybe being in a familiar environment will do him some good."

Katniss looks up to see some folk nearby are lingering, listening. Thom and Greasy Sae, a little cabal. Peeta did spend more of his life in a bakery than anywhere else. Perhaps the muscle memory might somehow trigger other memory. At this point, she'll try anything.

"Okay."

On the walk home, Peeta stops to vomit, too much sugar.

* * *

Clay lets Peeta help in the bakery a few times a week. Nothing fancy, nothing like before, just carrying flour, mostly. But he comes home smelling of sugar and melted butter and warm. He smells like himself.

And with Peeta occupied, she's able to hunt for longer. She feels less guilt about leaving him alone. The townspeople are pleased to see Peeta back where he belongs, which they're happy to tell her when she brings them meat. He even brings home crumpled sacks of crumbled cookies, ostensibly the broken ones, which he magnanimously shares with Hana.

For a few weeks, Katniss thinks that this could actually work.

Until the day Peeta comes home with his fingers in his mouth and a worried Clay by his side, come to apologize to Katniss in person. It seems that Peeta was just trying to help, pulling the trays from the oven like he'd seen the others do. Like he'd probably done a thousand times since he was a child.

Thing is, the rolls were not even close to being done. And Peeta forgot an oven mitt. He'd yelped and spilled them over the floor, ruckus and ruin.

Katniss feels sick. She feels like she's the one who should apologize, for agreeing to such an obviously stupid idea.

"I can pay you—"

"Nonsense, nonsense, these things happen," Clay says. "I'm thinking perhaps a more dissuasive latch on the ovens…" He carries on, apparently having spent the walk over coming up with ideas for how they can Peeta-proof his kitchen.

"You don't need to do that. It was a good idea."

Clay seems relieved, but he presses on. "You and Peeta are welcome in my shop anytime, Katniss," he says. "There will always be a loaf for you, on the house."

She remembers another baker, covered in flour and staring at her through a curtain of rain and too-long hair that curled into his heat-ruddy face.

He'd given her a loaf, too.

* * *

The morning after, Peeta is waiting downstairs in the kitchen, looking out the window at the rising sun. She sees, to her great shock, that he's dressed. A simple white shirt, khaki pants, the baking uniform he wore for most of his life. Even his hair is wet and slick, as though he styled it himself, the way he used to.

From the back like this, haloed by the rising sun, he almost looks like Peeta. She can imagine him standing like this, waiting to have breakfast with her before he heads to work. She can imagine him turning, a smile spreading, so handsome and crisp before her, some quip on his lips about her being a sleepyhead, he's going to be late.

Then he turns, hearing her descend at last, and she sees reality. Sees his shirt, wrinkled and mis-buttoned, one tail hanging longer than the other, the collar all askew. Sees the two different pairs of shoes, the mismatched socks. And his hair, which oozes with too much gel.

Her throat goes so very tight.

He doesn't understand yet, that he's not going back to work in the bakery. Not today, not ever. She didn't come collect him this morning, from his room, didn't come to dress him, hoping perhaps he would forget. But he didn't forget. He didn't want to forget. Instead, he tried to dress himself. He got himself all ready, for another day at the bakery.

She doesn't even know, what she can say.

She considers fleeing upstairs, leaving him to figure it out on his own. The doors are all locked, and the gate, so he won't be able to get out. Let him try all he wants, rant and rave at the unfairness of it all. The Katniss of old would have done just that. Would have run and hide, found some corner of her closet to crouch in until this all went away.

But this Katniss, she's not going to do that. She's not going to leave Peeta behind. Not again.

Instead, she squares her shoulders, steels her spine, and steps forward, toward Peeta. She stops at the kitchen island, where they keep jars of harmless, blunt things. Draws a utensil from one of the jars and hands it to him, a wooden spoon.

"Today," she says, "you can bake for me."

From the pantry, she pulls out the flour, she pulls out the sugar. The spices, the butters, the eggs. The bowls and beaters and whisks. Everything she can think of, everything they have, everything she thinks Peeta might need. She arranges it all on the table, for him.

And his eyes, they begin to shine.

Together, they survey this panoply of provisions. Then they dig in. Of course, Katniss has no idea how to bake, and neither does he. But that doesn't stop them. In a bowl, they dump cups of this and pinches of that. They crack eggs and cream butter and fluff flour. Then, when they've concocted something that looks like dough, they discover that Peeta remembers how to knead. The dough like clay, he flecks it with flour and goes to, folding and pressing, quarter turn and repeat, as familiar a motion as breathing. His fingers and wrists strong and sure, like she remembers them.

He stops only when the oven dings to let them know it's warm. The sound awakens some new memory in Peeta, who folds the dough one last time and then begins to shape it into a ball, on autopilot.

Katniss scrounges for a scrap of a recipe from Sae, in which she specifies how long to cook bread. She sets the timer, and they settle in to wait. Literally, as Peeta slides to the floor in front of the oven, eyes glued to his concoction, which eventually turns a satisfying, golden brown.

It looks like bread.

She even lets Peeta take it from the oven (careful, careful), his hands safely sheathed in two frilly mitts, the only ones she could find.

It smells like bread.

They let it cool, as long as Peeta can stand it. And then Katniss watches as he takes a hearty bite, eager to taste the fruits of his labor. For a moment, he munches, sloppy and happy. Then his jaw stills, eyes go very wide, and he spews. Mashed bread splats on the table between them.

Quickly, Katniss takes a nibble of her own.

The bread tastes foul, somehow worse than the coarse stuff you could make from tesserae. It's hard and chewy and salty like clay. She spits her own into her napkin and starts the arduous process of cleaning up.

Peeta doesn't ask to bake again.


	7. Chapter 7

A knock never fails to drop her heart to her toes. This time, it's even from the formal front door, the one Sae doesn't use. Whoever it is, she knows that the person is here about the barber. Like the bakery, the barber had been another _incident_.

Even though she's about as welcoming as a wolf, Thom gives her an easy smile. Of all Gale's friends, he's the only one who's never been afraid to talk to her. It's probably why he'd drawn the short straw. That and his duty as mayor.

"You heard about the barber." Something so public, she's sure word got out.

"Yes," Thom confirms. "I did. But that's not why I'm here."

She widens the door. "Okay."

"I came to tell you that the demolition crews from the Capitol are about finished up with our other key areas. They're asking me where to start next." _Demo crews_ , he says, and she thinks of the massive equipment that has captured Peeta's attention recently when they've gone to town. They've seen the machines at a distance, razing the former Hall of Justice like it was made of tissue. "I thought of you."

She doesn't follow. "Me?"

"Well, the Victor's Village. We could get the old houses cleared away, make way for some new ones."

Warmth spreads through her chest, into her face, a pleasant glow. For some reason, she imagined she'd be a little island out here forever, this abandoned wasteland. She's done Peeta a disservice, keeping him so sequestered from the renewed sense of community that's sprung up in town. He always preferred when there were more people around, him growing up with two brothers and in a bakery besides.

"I think that's a great idea," she says, and she really means it.

"Good." Thom beams. "They can start next week. It should take them only a few weeks. You should see the _size_ of their drills." Once a miner, always a miner. "I'll warn you, though, it's a bit loud."

She's not sure how to interpret it, his look. "Okay."

"I mean," he adds, gentle now, "do you think it will be okay for Peeta?"

She hadn't even considered. Peeta had seemed pretty enraptured, watching the machines work at a distance. But there's something in Thom's voice, something he's not saying. Katniss feels a new type of warmth, almost hot.

"What do you mean?"

Thom shifts now, looking away. "I mean…do you think it might set him off?"

Her voice is steel. "Not sure if that's your concern."

"It's my concern," Thom says gently, "because it took three grown men to restrain him at the barber's. He got spooked by a pair of scissors."

Katniss's thoughts spiral swiftly into despair. She knew it. The demolition was just a flimsy excuse for Thom to come speak to her. As mayor, he has to be concerned with the town's safety.

"I called ahead. I told him what to expect." She'd asked him to bring a helper and everything. At first, it seemed like it was going to work just fine. The shopkeeper's son from next door played cars with Peeta while the barber did the back of his head, chair swiveled away from the mirror so Peeta couldn't see.

"I'm not worried about the things you expect. I'm worried about the things you _don't_ expect."

"Don't be," she bites. "Peeta won't hurt anyone."

"Maybe not on purpose," Thom agrees. "Still, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about Granny Sae. And Hana. They spend a lot of time over here." He's the only one she knows who calls her Granny, a sign of respect.

"Peeta wouldn't hurt Hana. And he won't hurt me."

"Katniss, as your friend, I ask: how can you be sure? The Capitol did this to him. Who knows what he's capable of?"

"How do you know about that?" Her tone is ice.

Thom shifts on his feet and looks away, as though he's said more than he meant to. "It's in the papers."

Those blasted papers, which of course everyone in town reads. They're all the rage in Panem these days, the concept that you can tell the truth about what's going on in the town and beyond. Katniss can't even think, who would have told. Haymitch, most likely, in a drunken rant to a reporter. Or perhaps one of Snow's inner circle spilled the beans, in an attempt to make a deal.

Well, it's out. Nothing she can do about that now. So she just raises her chin to Thom. "Peeta will be fine. He'll be just fine. Thanks for the warning about the noise."

Thom just nods, sensing a closing door, and leaves with a promise to be back when the crews get here.

After he leaves, Katniss stands for a long time, her back to the door, feeling a rage grow within like a fire. She's angry, so very angry, an animal too big for its cage. But she finds that she's not angry at Thom, at the townspeople for being concerned, as they have every right to be. She's angry because they're right. Everyone is right—Thom, her Mother, Haymitch.

She's angry because it's time for Peeta's bath, time for their unending struggle, he never learns. Peeta is bigger than her, and stronger. The incident at the barber rattled her, more than she wants to admit. One minute Peeta's crashing cars with the shopkeeper's son and the next he's decking the poor guy in the jaw. No warning, just like when the doctor had first tried to put on a silver helmet.

She can only imagine what would have happened, if she'd tried to cut Peeta's hair herself, as she almost did. Before she remembered, thinking of scissors. It's only a matter of time until one of his elbows at bath time catches her in the stomach or the face. Only a matter of time before blood spurts or bruises bloom.

Not for the first time, Katniss considers that it might do him some good, to be in a facility with others like him. Like Hana. And so, she stands and stares, at the red phone that beckons from across the hall.

One call, that's all it would take.

She stands, alone, for a long time, a rowboat adrift in a vast ocean.

For now, she doesn't make the call. She also abandons the idea of a bath, not tonight. But she does go through the motions, their routine, making sure Peeta has his supper, brushes his teeth, tucks him in, leaves his glowworm on so he won't go berserk if he wakes up to darkness.

Then, after he's in bed, Katniss pulls out a bottle of white liquor she once filched from Haymitch and takes long draughts that burn and burn, hurt so good. She laughs until she cries, and then she stands for a long time, propped by Peeta's door frame, watching him sleep, until the ground starts to spin too much for her to stay upright.

Then she sinks down, into her bed and the cold oblivion of sleep.

Even in her dreams, she's alone.

* * *

A door in the hallway is ajar.

Katniss passes it, on her way downstairs to start preparing breakfast, before her bleary mind realizes why this is significant. It's not the door to Peeta's room. Or hers. Or the bathroom.

It's a different door.

One that has been closed the entire time they've been here. Katniss herself closed it, on the first night they arrived, after she realized what was inside. Now, the door is inexplicably cracked, as if the morning sun has forced it open with the tendrils of light crossing her path like lasers.

 _Trap_ , her brain screams. Has someone entered the house without her knowledge? The only things of value they own are behind that door. She goes very still, listening to the house. Listening for Peeta. But he's so very silent always, even more so in the mornings as he waits for the sun.

She moves on hunter's feet back down the hall, until she can peer into Peeta's room. From what she can see, it's empty. He's not in his bed or at his window. And she can't hear him downstairs. Sometimes, if he's hungry, he'll forage for something.

She relaxes, but only a little.

Something is different.

Quietly, oh so quietly, she slinks back to the open door, standing for a moment and listening intently with her good ear to the wood. It's quiet, too, but it's a charged type of quiet. With a breath, she pushes the door inward.

The room smells of dust and dreams. Motes fill the air, dancing in the sun. Of all the rooms in the house, this one gets the most sun, from expansive windows on two walls. That's why Peeta had spent so much time in this room, back after their first Games.

The sun blinds her for a moment, and all she sees are shapes, draped in white cloth. As her eyes adjust, she sees that one of the shapes is taller than the others.

It's Peeta.

He's wrapped, as always, in his bedding. She can just see the crown of his head, tinged golden in the light. This morning, he's not at his window. He's here instead, standing before a square draped with white cloth. The room is a graveyard.

But he's here now for the first time, unearthing the tombs, bringing life back to this place. As she watches, he extends a hand and pulls the white cloth down, exposing an easel and an expanse of blank canvas.

 _Yes_ , she thinks wildly, and she doesn't know why she didn't think of this sooner. Let him paint. Let him heal. It had worked for him before, as he processed their first time in the arena.

He lets his own sheet fall now, exposing the broad expanse of his back, naked except for a pair of black shorts.

She should look away, leave him to his privacy and this moment, but she can't. Him standing there with his back to her like that, haloed by the sun, she can almost see _him_. He's here, he's back, and he's exactly where he should be. Any second now, he'll reach over and pick up the brush and start with sure, clean strokes that will coalesce into something, anything.

This is the reason why she took him back from the Capitol, why she was so convinced he could heal here, with her.

He reaches out, fumbles with the brush that he left for himself, neatly, in the tray below the canvas. Pristine bristles, pristine canvas, right there waiting for him to reach out

But he has no paints.

She watches him realize this, cocking his head, and then she's scrambling to help, pushing past him—he's implacable as ever—to do what's she's best at. Hunt. Tear down. Destroy.

She yanks sheets violently from their resting places, unearthing a stack of canvas, a bookcase, a desk. She's a whirlwind of dust and sheets. She doesn't even think what effect this flurry could be having on Peeta. When she looks over, he's watching her, silent, but with the most interest he's shown her in a long time.

Finally, she unearths a small cabinet against the far wall.

She kneels before it reverently, and it's like opening a treasure chest.

There everything is, stacked neatly and perfect, brushes and tubes and chalk lined up, paints carefully preserved behind clear plastic. She sees an explosion of greens and yellows and blues and five shades of orange for a sunrise. In all of it, in the glorious sum of the whole, she sees Peeta. Even this, simple storage for his supplies, he's made beautiful.

She freezes when a soft hand settles on her shoulder. She hadn't even heard him approach, on his bare foot. She doesn't want to move, doesn't want him to ever stop touching her, the first time he's voluntarily touched her in too long His hand is firm, and it takes her a moment to realize that it's too firm, that he's not necessarily touching her so much as pushing her away.

She shifts aside, giving him access. Like her, he crouches and stares. But unlike her, he seems confused. As though he can't see himself anywhere. But finally, he reaches into a shelf and pulls out a simple palette of primary colors. Building blocks for so many more.

The paint is cracked around the edges. Like him.

Water. He'll need water.

She escapes to the bathroom. Her face in the mirror is flushed, hair insane from sleep, eyes shining with a mania. Something is happening, here and now. Something important.

She returns with a tumbler, and he's already standing back in front of the easel, paintbrush between his teeth as he fumbles with the wrapper on the paint.

She's seen him do this so many times.

Her heart beats, and it's saying, _him_ , _him_ , _him_.

It's really him.

Peeta, it's really you.

She retreats to a corner of the room, out of the sun, and she watches. She thinks of the many afternoons she spent watching Peeta paint. In their book, on an easel, on a cake. He was always creating something.

But this time will be different.

She's watching him do so much more.

As she watches, Peeta plucks the brush from between his lips, dips it first in the water, then smears it in the circle of paint. Blue, like his eyes.

The brush remains poised in the air a moment, a bird about to take flight.

And then, the little bird meets the sky.


	8. Chapter 8

Katniss sits where she's fallen, where she landed when her legs gave out.

Peeta still stands before his canvas. He's used all the red. And when that one's done, he uses another red from the cabinet, then another and another, scattering the supplies as he goes, discarding those he doesn't need. He's making a huge mess of everything. Of the cabinet, of the canvas, of himself.

She can't see Peeta anywhere any more.

Red drips from the easel, curling down the legs until it pools like blood on the floor.

For the first time, she sees him get agitated.

She doesn't know what he's doing, doesn't know if she should make him stop, doesn't know what he would do if she tried.

His movements become increasingly erratic, agitated. He fists his hair and grits his teeth and wags his brush, like he's scolding a dog. Or himself. Or her for enabling him in an effort so obviously doomed to failure. He shakes the brush so hard that it drops free, splattering against the hardwood floor. At the sound, Katniss raises her head from where she'd let it fall back against the wall.

The room had smelled of dreams. Now, it smells like a nightmare, all sweat and cloying chemicals and fear.

Peeta stands for a moment, looking down at his paint-spattered feet, breathing heavily through his nose. The muscles in his back, in his legs are taut, like the string of her bow before she lets the arrow fly.

And then he explodes. His right fist punches the canvas, once, twice, until the third time it punches right through.

Katniss surges to her feet, unsure of what she should do, but sure that she should do something. Peeta's struggling to rip the canvas to pieces, smearing the still-wet paint all over his naked torso, his hair, his face. But it's not just paint anymore. It's also blood, and it's everywhere.

"No," she gasps because he's hurting himself.

When he hears her, his whirls, eyes horrified, as though he'd forgotten she was there. "Nuh!" he screams. "Nuh!" He brandishes the carcass of the canvas between them.

She throws her hands up, to shield herself, to placate him. It doesn't work. He recoils at the fear in her eyes, realizing that he's the cause, and whirls the canvas away from them, away from her. Straight into the nearest window, which shatters on impact, fracturing the setting sun into a thousand shards of light.

There's glass everywhere.

And then there's real blood, dripping into her eyes from somewhere above. He's frantic now, keening at what he's done, eyes mad, and he scrabbles around as though to pick up the pieces, to repair what he's broken.

"Stop!" she screams, fear lending volume to her voice, but she's trapped, marooned from him on an island of floor in a sea of glass. "Stop!" He doesn't, merely continues scrabbling for jagged shards as though they're toy blocks he's spilled on the floor. His palms drip.

He's gathering them to him, slicing in to his forearms, his biceps, stomach, slipping in blood and paint on the floor, and she's faint. She thinks she's going to be sick.

"Help me," she whimpers, but Peeta can't. He's not listening. And neither is anyone else.

She takes a step toward him and winces as glass slips into the arch of her foot.

Then, a miracle comes in the sound of a voice, from below, in the house even. She thinks maybe that they're calling her name. Peeta whirls toward the intruder, scattering glass in his wake.

This is how Gale finds them—screaming and covered in blood.

* * *

One moment he's filling the door and the next he's striding forward in his big boots and decking Peeta in the jaw. There's a bone-fracturing crunch and Peeta's down on the ground with a cheekful of glass and an eyeful of stars.

"Stop!" Her voice cracks, but it's enough to make Gale pause, turning back to her in disbelief. "It was an accident. He was painting and then he broke the window and…" Her voice is too high and she's speaking too rapidly and she's standing on one foot and she's closing one eye because blood stings. "It was my fault," she finishes, lamely.

"Yeah," Gale says. His expression is dark, fierce. "That's what they all say." Then she's off the ground and in his arms. He descends the stairs slowly, gentle and careful with the arc of her head, her feet. At the bottom, he pivots, getting the lay of the land, and spies the couch. She winces as he lowers her to it. Then he's gone, off to the kitchen, where he bangs around looking for something.

He returns with a warm rag, bandages, and a bowl, just in time to be a firm pressure on her shoulder, as she tries to hobble back to her feet. "You're not going anywhere."

She fumes. "We can't just leave him."

"Like hell we can't," Gale snaps. "He could have killed you."

"No," she shakes her head vehemently, which is a bad idea because glass goes flying.

"Stay still," he commands. There's a new something in his voice. Confidence, perhaps. Power. She's not sure, that she likes it. Yet she finds herself doing as he asks.

He's quiet, then, focused on her foot, extracting shards of glass, as carefully as if he's pulling thorns from a paw. His fingers are warm on her flesh, as he probes. When he's all done, wrapped her up tight, Katniss repeats, "We can't leave him there."

This time, Gale merely gives a tight nod. "I'll take care of it."

"Wait," she says, as he gathers back up the first aid supplies. She pulls a small vial from the kit. "You'll need this."

"Morphling?" he hazards.

She nods. "He won't let you get close. Not with those tweezers."

He looks at her for a beat too long, at what she's implying, then turns and tromps back up the stairs, louder than he needs to. First rule of thumb when dealing with injured animals—make a lot of noise. So they know you're coming.

She considers sneaking upstairs after him, see if there's anything she can do to help, but her foot has started to throb. So she settles for propping it on the couch and listening to the steady murmur of Gale's voice, the tone he uses to keep a wounded animal calm.

A long while later, Gale comes back down. "He's okay. Dazed, and the morphling knocked him right out, just an eighth. Then I got him all patched up and then put him to bed."

Katniss focuses on picking bits of glass from the couch. With Gale standing there like that, all big and clean and official, she feels small and dirty and homely. He recognizes it, her discomfort, and moves to sit across from her in one of the arm chairs.

"I still can't believe he's here," Gale says, quiet now, calm.

"Of course. Where else would he be?" Katniss is bewildered. Surely he'd been aware of the official statement.

Gale's eyes fix on her face. "I assumed you'd hired someone to nurse him. Preferably in his own home. Last I heard, he was a vegetable."

Katniss turns her face away, the idea. "I would never leave him with strangers."

"But he's not…" Gale hesitates, "…himself."

She doesn't known how to answer this. "No."

"So you're here, alone, with a mutt who might kill you at any moment?"

"He's not a mutt." Her voice is dangerously quiet. "And why are you here anyway?"

Gale stares at her then. "You called me, remember? Left a confusing and, frankly, almost incoherent message about everyone being right and that you're afraid. And then you didn't answer your phone. So yeah, I'm here."

Katniss doesn't remember calling Gale. She doesn't remember a lot of things from last night. The red phone is likely very much off its hook, after the night she had. She vaguely recalls, some battle of wills, one which she apparently lost. "I was drunk, I think. I didn't mean to…"

"What, ask for help?" He just shakes his head. "Has he hurt you before?"

"No," she's emphatic. "He hasn't so much as touched me."

At that, Gale's expression shifts, to a different kind of concern, one she doesn't like. Because it's too close to pity.

She hurries on. "And we're not alone. The townspeople—they know. And Haymitch and mother."

"So everyone knows but me."

"I didn't want to…" What? Burden him with this? Suck him back in to this place that he'd hated? Gale had jumped at the first opportunity to get out. "I thought you knew," she finishes lamely.

"Well, I didn't. Thom hinted, but…"

They're quiet again. She's again acutely aware of how she must look, with her frazzled hair, her frumpy, untucked shirt, and her skirt with the creeping rend in the hem, which she's been meaning to teach herself how to fix. A far cry from another girl she'd seen him with once, on the monitor, some interview about how they're setting up the new government. She was very blonde and very delicate and very not Katniss.

She tucks her bare, bloody feet up, to hide them.

"How's the girlfriend?" Katniss asks, a jab.

He just shrugs. "She's just my assistant."

"You have an assistant now?"

Before he can answer, he's interrupted by slow footsteps on the porch, then the bang of the screen door. A warbled "Hello!" rings out.

It's Sae, letting herself in, Hana in tow. Katniss has never been more happy to see them, right on schedule. Sae's not surprised to see Gale. News from the train travels fast.

But later, after soup's on and the smell is enough to entice Peeta from his morphling dreams, Sae is surprised to see him, the bandages on his face, his hands. "What happened?"

"There was an accident—" Katniss begins.

"We broke a window, playing catch," Gale adds. "Peeta tried to help clean up." It's disconcerting, how smoothly he lies.

"Boys," Sae chides. "Balls are for outside." But she doesn't pursue it further, bless her. Hana's also concerned about Peeta's face, reaching a tentative hand. But even with her, he's strangely reserved. He stands tall, out of her grasp, and eventually escapes back up the stairs, where she can't follow.

To keep the mood from souring, Gale turns on the charm, almost too bright to look at, a far cry from the gangly, grubby miner in Katniss' memory. She can't help but compare his vibrancy, his life, to the shell of a boy huddled upstairs. Maybe it's just been too long since she's seen someone who's fully strong, fully healthy. Maybe she's been looking at Peeta for so long that his pallor seems natural to her now.

Over supper, Gale catches them up on life outside 12. Sae can't follow, all of the nuances of Gale's job and what he does now, but he takes the time to explain, in simple terms. Basically, they've asked for representatives of each district to form a tribunal. Given his role in the evacuation and in the ensuing war, his visibility as the Mockingjay's consort, his association with Coin, the list goes on, Gale was one of the folks tapped to represent 12.

"You're a politician," Katniss blurts. She remembers the days when Gale used to rail against the very idea of government.

"Only temporarily, until we elect a real President and real representatives." He looks at her then, contemplating. "You know, Katniss, we could use you. People listen to you."

She recoils immediately. At the idea of there being a we. At the idea of being used.

Gale sees it in her eyes, and he drops it. But he also doesn't apologize. He's always been that way, idealistic, believing what he believes, always trying to talk her on to his side. Yet still, his gaze lingers, more to say, and soon.


	9. Chapter 9

Gale stays to help her pick up the pieces. Of glass, of her life. She doesn't ask him how long he can stay. She gets the sense that he'll stay long enough to convince himself that Peeta's not a danger to her. Or long enough for him to convince her that Peeta is. He watches Peeta always.

Strangely, Greasy Sae seems a little cold when Katniss asks her if she'd be willing to watch Peeta for a day or two.

"We're going hunting," she says. "And Thom will be close." He's here, in the Victor's Village, supervising the initial stages of the demo. And he was exactly right—it's loud. A mixed blessing, Peeta doesn't even seem to notice, everyone's worries unfounded. He's back to his near-catatonic state, sleeping the day away. Katniss should probably be concerned, but she buries it, Gale here, so much possibility. She tells herself that Peeta is just sleeping it off, his injuries.

Just like that, she has a hunting partner again. Gale's a little rusty, having spent more of his time behind a desk recently than out in the trees, but he warms nicely. Before she even knows what she wants, he's there. Tossing a stone for the swallows, signaling her when he spies the turkeys. And then, miracle of miracles, he whistles at her, the one that means, _look over here_.

There, a bit beyond arrow range, up the slope, is a buck, the biggest one she's ever seen, the most majestic of antlers. By the way it's missing one prong, a lopsided pattern that looks familiar, Katniss realizes that she and Gale have stumbled on this buck before, years ago. Back then, they never wanted to take the chance of hawking something so large back in the District. But now…

Gale's already melted into the trees, his thoughts exactly. Anticipation buzzes in her veins as she slides an arrow, careful, quietly. The buck keeps grazing serenely at the underbrush, the flick of his ears the only indication he's on alert. Katniss nocks her bow and cocks it at three-quarters, ready.

Then there's a snap, but it's too soon and from the wrong direction. Katniss draws up but the buck has already danced a couple of steps away from her, uncertain and still out of range. Another beat of silence, the buck's nostrils flaring, and then it all happens, and fast. A thump and the buck whirls, this time in the correct trajectory, running perpendicular to where she is, thundering through the trees. A split second, she reacts.

"Whoo wee!" Gale exclaims, crashing over, as the buck shivers to its end. "That's the king of the forest right there." He plucks the arrow from where it embedded in one eye, right to the brain. "I see you haven't lost your touch."

"And I see that you've almost lost yours," she teases, caught up in the euphoria of the kill. "You almost scared him away, breaking that twig like that."

"Ah, but it's all in the recovery. I can still throw a decoy with the best of them."

"Look at the size of those hooves," she marvels.

"Yeah, I'm thinking at least three hundred," Gale says, with a whistle. Then his grin fades. "Speaking of which, we should start heading back. That's a lot of weight."

"I don't want to go home yet." She surprises herself, impulsive. "Let's make a night of it." It feels so natural, so right, that she doesn't want to go back home. Let Greasy Sae stay with Peeta a little longer.

Gale's eyebrows raise slightly, but he rolls with it. "Fine by me. Let me comm Thom." And he pulls a small device from his pocket. Instantly, Katniss' good mood fades.

"Thom has one of those?"

"He's the mayor," Gale says, distracted, as he thumbs in some message.

"Are you sure you should be using that, this being such official business and all?" She's sorta joking but sorta not, ebullience fading, annoyed that Gale brought a comm. This was supposed to be a mini-vacation, a way to get away from things for a while. The comm is too 13, a sober reminder that things will never be as they were.

Gale laughs, message sent, and he drops it back in his pocket. "Seeing as though I'm out here with you, I'd say we'll be fine. I can always just say I was following Mockingjay orders."

The name is a slap to the face. Her cheeks almost sting with it. She can't believe how cavalier he's being. Gale knows how much she hated being the symbol of the rebellion. Her throat is so tight she can't even speak. Instead, she turns back to the buck, making a good show of inspecting the pelt.

He's not fooled. "Did I do something?"

"No." But even she hears it, how curt.

"Okay, what did I do?"

"Nothing. Really." She doesn't want to talk about the Mockingjay, not ever again. So she tries to infuse truth into her tone, searching for the right words. "It's just…different."

"And here I was thinking not much has changed. We're still a great team, you and me." When she stays quiet, Gale switches gears, accepting her moods, as he always has. "What say you we take a hunk out of this rump and enjoy the fruits of our labor?"

In response, Katniss takes her knife to said rump, carving out a primo piece. Within minutes, Gale has a fire going, and they're roasting the meat on a makeshift spit. Half an hour later, they're biting into it, juices running down their chin.

Nothing has ever tasted so good.

Gale keeps her laughing again with tales from the Capitol, making fun of all the little idiosyncrasies of the former Capitol citizens as they acclimate to the influx of people from the Districts. "You expect me to work?" one overprivileged woman had exclaimed when they offered her a position. "Do you know who I am?"

Katniss just laughs, although it's not quite funny.

They decide to spend the night in their little hunting shack on the way to the lake. They've done this before, when they lost track of time or it was the weekend and they couldn't stomach the thought of voluntarily ducking back under the fence.

The shack has just enough room for them to spread their thin pallets side by side.

It's dark, and they're talking about nothing. Lying on their sides, facing each other. She hasn't slept on the floor in so long. It's like they're in a cave, their last night on earth. The conversation ebbs and flows, so very free and easy, the way it's always been between them, the way it always should be.

And then Gale starts asking her about _him_. About what's wrong with him.

"It's called hijacking," she says. "What do you know about it?"

"Very little," Gale says, shifting up to an elbow. "It's classified. Well above my rank. Wouldn't want this stuff falling into the wrong hands."

"But you've heard of it."

"Everyone's heard of it now. The papers and all."

She's suddenly intent. "Do you know how the papers got ahold of it?" She wants to know, if she should have words with Haymitch.

"It came out as part of Snow's trial, one of his crimes against humanity. A single line in a litany of sins—Peeta Mellark, hijacked. Naturally, some reporter found it. It caused quite the stir for a while there. It was everything we could do to keep the media away from you."

"We?"

Gale shifts, looking away. "I might have had something to do with it. In return for not going straight to the source, the media demanded we make an official statement."

"Again, _we_?"

Gale squirms. "I'm still acting as the Mockingjay's official consort." She remembers the term, coined by Effie back when they were in 13.

"What does that even mean?"

"That people come to me when they think they want something from you."

She's not sure how comfortable she is, the idea that people still want something from the Mockingjay. Or the idea that there's an official channel to make inquiries, one that she'd previously been unaware of. She supposes, though, that she's glad it's Gale who's there to fend them off.

"I'm none of their business."

Gale snorts, almost a laugh. "One of the unexpected side effects of freedom. The press is also free to write about whatever they want."

She considers this, the price of freedom. She supposes that it's worth it, some personal discomfort. "What do the people want, the ones who approach you?"

"Lots of things. An interview, usually. Sometimes they just want you to attend an event they're hosting in your honor. A christening of this structure or that. I hear there's a statue of you in district eight, in front of the new hospital." He side-eyes her at that, anticipating the look on her face.

She doesn't disappoint.

He just laughs, then adds, "Plutarch even approached me once to see if you'd come sing on some new show of his."

She blanches, at all these ideas. "Don't they know I can't leave twelve?"

Gale's turn now, to be uncomfortable. "It's not…common knowledge."

This piques her interest, the idea that her sentence hadn't been shared with the public. "Why not? I would have thought the districts would have wanted to know."

"They kept your trial pretty quiet, given everything else going on. Not everyone shares the view that you should have been punished. Not after the evidence that Coin, not Snow, was responsible for…" Gale hesitates then, something in his voice. "…the attack on the square."

Dangerous territory, this. She wants to know, more than anything, if Gale's bombs had been in those silver parachutes. If it had been one of his traps that got her sister killed.

"Ask it," he says, reading it in her eyes. "Just ask it."

"Did you know? What Coin was planning?"

"No." He's vehement. "Coin used me and Beetee, just like she used you. She told us those bombs would only be used against Snow and his men. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that I never came up with the idea. I thought it would help us win the war, and it did. It probably saved countless lives, an incisive blow to the heart of the Capitol. But it cost me something that mattered more."

She's silent for a long time, digesting this. It helps, that Gale didn't know.

Then, "So, what was the official statement?"

Gale doesn't follow, a thread from earlier. "About what?"

"About Peeta. What did you tell people?"

"Oh. That he underwent an experimental technique for torture, to try to get him to share Rebel secrets, of which he of course had no knowledge. That he now requests privacy as he recovers with his fiancee in District 12." She doesn't even know what to say, their life in a few sentences. Gale's eyes turn to hers, dancing in the light of the fire in the hearth. "But he's not, is he?"

"Not what?"

"Recovering."

If it had been anybody else, she would have said that Peeta's getting better every day. He just needs time. He'll be fine. If it had even been earlier in the day, she would have dodged. But because it's Gale, because it's late at night, them two the only people in the world, ensconced in the glow of the firelight, she answers with the truth.

"No," she whispers, the first time she's ever admitted it to herself.

Gale nods, as if he expected as much. "When I went back upstairs, he was just lying there. He hadn't even _moved_. I picked him up like he was a child. He's gone, Katniss."

 _Yes_ , she thinks, this brutal, naked truth. Peeta is gone.

She tells him, then, all of it. At first her voice is calm, clinical, telling him about how she'd found Peeta in a hospice, a skeleton of a man. How she had to feed him small meals, five times a day, so he could regain his weight. His brain scans, like the dark side of the moon. His wetting the bed. His eyes like static. Him wandering off when she went hunting and forgot to close the gate. Finding him in the town.

When she gets to the part about Hana, she loses it, her making Peeta smile. "I was jealous," she rants, voice breaking. "Of a simpleton. Peeta sees her. He plays with her. He smiles at her."

Gale just listens, stroking her skin with one finger, lending her his warmth, his strength.

She lets it all out, her despair, her loneliness, her thoughts of suicide. At that, Gale makes some noise deep in his chest and sits up to join her. She's now sitting with her legs curled into her chest, arms folded over her knees, holding herself together.

"Katniss," he says, gripping her elbows until she looks up into his eyes. "If you ever think like that again, you call me. Any time of day or night, you call me. Or if not me, then anyone. Your mother, Haymitch. Just talk to someone, okay? If anything happened to you…" He can't continue, words choke. "Just, promise me, okay?"

"I promise," she says.

"I'm sorry," he says, "that I didn't come sooner. I'm sorry that I left you to deal with this alone. I didn't know. And I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" she almost laughs, her voice thick with tears. She can't imagine Gale being afraid of anything.

"That you hate me. Because of Prim."

This starts the tears anew. "Finnick told me once, that he wished Annie and Peeta were dead. And sometimes, I wish that, too. I wish Peeta had died, along with Prim. It would be easier. Cleaner."

And Gale is so close and he's so warm and the fire has burned low now, just the embers. She shifts, opening herself up a bit. Gale's hands don't leave her arms, traveling up now, to her shoulders.

"I could never hate you," she whispers, looking down. But only for a moment, until she feels Gale's finger on her chin, tipping her face up. The better to see her, as if to gauge the truth of what she's just said, as if she's not already broken and bare before him, no more secrets. His eyes are diamonds in the low light, sparked and almost desperate.

"Do you mean it?"

And Katniss knows, she _knows_ , what this is and why he's here, in District 12, and why they're _here,_ and why this is so very right. She looks at him, this strong, beautiful man, features painted in fire, but all she can see is the boy he used to be.

And to this boy, who asks her—again and again—if she loves him, she finally gives an answer that is right and true. But she doesn't answer with her voice, words fail her. She answers with her lips. She's kissing him, she's kissing Gale. And this kiss, it's not like their other kisses, kisses of desperation or departure. These kisses are slow and steady and they have all night, all the time in the world. He tastes like venison and so does she but that's okay because it's venison they caught and cooked together.

They kiss long and slow, burning deep and steady like fire. They kiss and kiss and kiss (warm and hot and wet) and then his hands are on her skin (more) and hers are on his (please) and he's so very alive and responsive and hers. She's just so tired. And not just from the day and the hunt but from…everything. She's tired of taking care of someone who doesn't understand, who may never understand. She's tired of loving someone who can't ever love her back.

She wants to let go. She wants Gale. Wants him everywhere. And for an eternity, he's everywhere. His hands, on her skin. And her hands, on his. There's a moment where she knows, with crystal clarity, that this is going to happen. She wants it to happen, so very much. And she feels it again, that hunger. But with the hunger comes a memory, of the first time she'd felt it, in another cave, on a beach. With another boy.

She must make some sob-sound, at the memory of this boy, for Gale's fingers and lips and heart still. For the sound she made, was a word. And the word was, "Wait."

And Gale does wait, pulling back and breathing, heavily, through his nose. She can feel his heartbeat, pulsing in his neck.

"I can't," she says at last, muffled from where she's hidden herself against his bare chest. She's half-bare as well, her shirt shucked somewhere.

"I know," Gale says at last, the words wrenched. His big, warm hand cradles her skull, running fingers through her hair, which has come all out of her braid. He doesn't sound hurt. Or surprised. He just sounds resigned, like he knew how this was going to end.

They both knew it. Peeta's still between them. Peeta may be damaged, a permanent scar on Katniss' life, but he's alive.

"If there's even a chance that he…" she can't continue, can't voice her hope. If there's even a sliver of a chance that Peeta will come back to her, she'll be there. She'll be waiting. "You know I love you."

Gale smiles against her temple. "I know. I've always known. I just wanted to hear you say it. Just once."

She doesn't answer. She can't even speak because she's terrified, at what she's denying herself. At what she might never have again.

"But know this," he says, releasing her from their embrace, so he can look again into her eyes, faded to embers. "I'm always a phone call away. I mean it. If you're ever sad or lonely or, gods forbid, thinking of the most efficient way to off yourself. I hear Snow favored poison." She laughs at that, no joking matter.

They settle back onto their mats, spent, and she curls into him, taking comfort still in his presence, his warmth. The fire has died, the night grown cold. Yet Gale has warmed her thoroughly, inside and out, the idea that he's there and always will be.

"I'm sorry, you know." He doesn't have to say for what. "And I'll always be waiting."

She falls asleep in his arms.


	10. Chapter 10

The morning after, she's stiff from the ground and puffy from tears and her breath smells like a deer died in her mouth and so does his. They aren't morning people (so much alike), so they have no need of words as they collect their stuff. Then they start the trek back to down. Yesterday, the forest was full of light and life and hope. Now, it seems just like it always has. Unchanging, never-ending, wild.

Gale takes the first shift with the sled, the one he's lashed together to cart the carcass, at least all the parts worth saving. The rest they leave behind, an eviscerated corpse, the death of something that could have been. He's a familiar presence at her back, her leading the way, to scout out the best ground. It makes talking difficult, and that's okay. Better, probably. Anyway, they're used to this, long days in the forest. It was always better not to talk, as it would scare away the game. It's another long day in the forest, just being together.

Still, she's glad when the fenceposts come into view, their way no longer barred by wire. She keeps forging ahead, even after the path is flat and clear.

"Where do you want it?" Gale asks, as she tromps up the porch, steps quickening now that she's almost home.

"Here's fine," she says. He does as she says, hefting the carcass to the edge of the porch. Carefully, they scrape the muck from their boots, dust off the dirt and twigs.

Katniss ducks inside. "We're back," she calls, following the sounds of the monitor to find Sae in the living room, knitting something, Peeta and Hana playing at her feet. "How was he?"

"An angel," Sae says, smiling her beatific smile. For once, Katniss is glad that Peeta probably hadn't noticed she was gone. She tries to ignore it, the guilt like grease in her gut. She sets about to filling a bucket under the sink with water.

"How was the hunt?" Sae asks, following her. Her tone is light, almost wary. She seems to be asking more. Katniss can't meet her eyes.

"We got a buck."

Sae brightens. "I can't even remember the last time I cooked venison."

"Well, we have enough for a feast. Probably for half the town. Oh and some turkeys, too."

"You offering?"

Katniss considers. The last time she and Peeta had gone to a gathering, it had been for the christening of the bakery. Too long. "Sure."

Sae's eyebrows raise, this unusual answer. "Good hunting, indeed. I'll spread the word."

Sae and Hana gather their things to leave, headed out to the porch where Gale's working at a turkey, his specialty.

"Thank you," Katniss says, "for Peeta."

Sae waves her off. "He's never no trouble. And Thom looked in on me plenty." Katniss just bets he did. "I'll be back tomorrow. Gale, good to see you."

"And you." When they're alone again, Gale cocks his head at her. "What's tomorrow?"

"Apparently," she says, leaning against the railing, "we're hosting a gathering in the evening, courtesy of your buck. Wanna come?"

"Hey, I just tossed some rocks. This buck's all you."

"Considering we've been after this sucker for years, I'd say you were definitely the deciding factor." Gale just smiles and keeps plucking his turkey. He's best with feathers. She's best with pelts. "But seriously, you're welcome."

Gale considers, something in his face. She wonders, for the first time, how long he'd been able to get off work. "I should probably…" Gale begins.

Katniss says, "Yeah, of course." It's been almost a week of demolition, and Peeta seems to be handling it well, no triggers. Even now, there's a steady undercurrent of sound, a grinding of teeth and steady chirping when the machines move. And they've said everything there is to say, words petered out.

"I think I'll take off today, after lunch."

"And after a shower," she teases, him covered in blood.

"Look who's talking."

They banter easily for another couple of hours, finishing their tasks, the meat all cleaned and ready for Sae to work her magic tomorrow.

When Gale descends from the shower, he's dressed again in his fancy clothes, shirt crisp and neatly tucked, his shiny shoes, hair smooth and combed away from his face. Distant, unfamiliar, already gone.

"Your turn?" he says. "I can watch Peeta."

"That's okay. You don't need to wait for me. Peeta makes do just fine."

"Okay," Gale says, but he doesn't move. She can feel it, then, the tension. He wants to stay, with her, but he needs to go, back to his life.

"I'd walk you to the train, but." They both glance at Peeta. He's sitting on the floor, playing with a cloth doll that Hana had left behind. It's string hair was in two braids, and he seems to be unraveling one of them.

"It's alright. I know where it is."

Another awkward beat, that unbearable tension. "Okay," Gale says again, with effort, and steps over. "See you, Peeta." There's a long pause before Peeta notices Gale's outstretched hand. And then he just stares at it in distrust, as though it will bite. To his credit, Gale just shifts to pat his head. Peeta immediately dodges the touch, he can't be bothered, he's busy with unraveling the doll's other braid.

"Alrighty then," Gale says, with forced brightness. Then he turns back, to her. For a moment, she thinks he'll hug her, before he remembers. She doesn't do hugs. She doesn't do goodbyes.

So he steps by her instead, to the kitchen table, where he shoulders his knapsack. She walks him out to the porch, the screen swinging softly shut. The day is still cool enough that Katniss has to hold herself in.

"Here," Gale says, sudden, pulling something from his pocket. He hands it to her, folded paper, glossy with smiling people.

Already, she distrusts, those smiles. "What's this?"

"Just…" he says, staring off in the direction where the sun sinks. "It's for this place. Near the Capitol."

She shakes her head. "But I can't—"

"It's not for you." She gets it then, what Gale is offering. A stone settles deep in her stomach, heat rippling. "Look at it, yeah?"

"I will," she says, faint. There's that feeling again, the guilt.

"I thought it might help." Gale says, staring off. Then, "Her name is Isle." Her name, the blonde, his assistant. By naming her, he's telling Katniss that she does matter, more than he originally let on. He's also telling her that, to him, Katniss matters more, always more.

"Take care, Catnip," he says, still not looking.

And then he's gone.

Watching Gale walk away feels like her insides are scrubbed with tree bark. It's hard, as hard as it once was, to walk away from Peeta, standing before the lightning tree.

She wants, so badly, to run after him with her bloodstained pants, in her bare feet, and beg him to stay. But she can't do that to him, can't hold him back. She can never leave twelve, thus sayeth the law. Although she suspects now that this could change in the future, with Gale's help. Gale, who's always been too big for this place, destined for great things.

So instead, she forces herself to watch him walk away, his long, loose stride. Until she can no longer see him. Until he's gone. Then she steps back inside and slips the brochure under her mattress, burying it where no one will find it.

She can't bring herself to look at it.

Not yet.

* * *

By the town's reckoning, the gathering is a rousing success.

That morning, Katniss wakes in a foul mood, already regretting her offer to host. She was still high on the hunt, on Gale. She doesn't remotely feel like having company, doesn't even feel like making herself presentable, or Peeta. So it's a long while, before she can pull herself from bed.

When Sae arrives in late morning, she reports that the town is all a-flutter from being invited to see inside the remaining house in the Victor's Village. Of course, there's not enough room inside, so Thom plans to set up several long tables in the yard out of spare lumber and sawhorses. And the merchants will donate food a'plenty to fill those tables, breads and vegetables and liquors, the perfect complement to all the meat.

Fortunately, her guests don't seem to expect anything of Katniss except her presence. For the most part, everyone coos over Peeta, who beams at the attention. They ooh and aah over the furniture, the materials in the walls, the stained glass study, even the floors. Thom eventually pries out the story of the buck, which Katniss finds herself telling to a circle of faces by a bonfire. A few folks draw her aside to ask a bit about edible herbs, some brave souls who have begun to venture past the fence themselves.

Yet despite all of it, all these people, Katniss feels alone, for she doesn't know the half of them, so many new faces. She's but a relic, here in the museum that the Capitol created, a simulacrum of the girl she used to be.

* * *

"Pick it up," Katniss snaps.

It being Peeta's fork, which he's just dropped to the floor. On accident or on purpose, she's not sure. He's been dropping things recently, more than usual. And strangely surly when it comes to putting on clothes or eating his food. Like he's fighting her, every step of the way.

The ongoing demo doesn't help one bit, the constant noise, the constant presence, workers swarming like ants. The big machines are close now, working on Peeta's house across the way. She hasn't been able to let him outside to play in days, it's not safe. And still a couple of weeks to go, Thom had told her, taking a bit longer than expected, as these things always do.

She and Peeta are both feeling it, this strain.

"Peeta," she says, tone sharper still. "Pick it up."

But he ignores her, strangely stubborn, his limbs limp, eyes dead. She doesn't know if it's him, doesn't know if it's her, but things have been different since Gale left. Things have been worse. It's really over, like Gale was her escape plan, but then even that fell through.

Or maybe Gale had reminded her what it's like, to be around an adult. And she liked it, someone she could talk to. Someone who would talk back. Someone who would look at her. Peeta, he merely stares down at his food, at his hands, at his feet, always down at something, anything that isn't her.

Her patience with him has worn as thin as a veneer of ice. Dangerous. She can feel it: just a bit of pressure, and she'll crack. It hasn't helped that Sae has been sick as well. So they're subsisting on sub-standard fare, like the meager meal before them now.

Peeta's hand twitches. But, instead, of reaching for his fork, he reaches instead for the mashed taters on his plate. With his fingers.

She slaps his wrist to the table. "No. Pick up your fork, Peeta."

Peeta leaves his one hand there, right where she pinned it. For a moment, he considers. Then he inches his other hand, again toward the taters.

Katniss reacts with lethal speed, sweeping his plate away from him, where it crashes to the floor, food flying. "No!" She's standing over him now, pinning both hands to the table, screaming right into his face. "No no no, you can't eat with your hands, do you hear me? You're not a child, you're not a goddamn infant." She wants to slap him until he listens. She wants to knock him out of his chair, grind his face into the ground, and make him pick up his fork. She wants to…

Peeta is keening. He's cringing and rocking and keening like an injured goat.

Katniss jerks back, stung. When she releases his hands, Peeta curls them immediately over his ears. Oh, he'd heard her alright. All too well. She stumbles away until she bumps against the kitchen island, the only thing holding her up. Below, Peeta's fork goes skittering, from where she'd kicked it. The mashed taters are slippy beneath her foot.

"Peeta," she says, hoarse. "I'm sorry…"

He just winces at the sound of her voice. He shoves up and away, clomping up the stairs, to the sanctity of his art room, from the sound of the slam. Leaving her alone to clean up the mess.

She considers, just leaving it there. It won't matter, no one coming to see. From how Thom tells it, Sae might be away for days, maybe a week or more. She's had them before, these bouts of sickness, some flare-up courtesy of her years in the mines.

But if she leaves it, this mess, it will be there waiting in the morning, congealed and rancid. So she forces herself to erase it, the vestiges of their squabble, as though it had never happened. After she's done, after she's scrubbed and washed and rinsed, she goes upstairs, to her bedroom, and closes the door carefully behind her. She stands, almost clinging to the doorknob, against the gravitational pull of her bed. Or rather, what lies beneath.

She'd left Gale's brochure under her mattress for days, intending to forget about it, despite her promise to Gale that she'd at least look at it. But it invaded her sleep, as though it were a rock digging in to her flesh. Tossing and turning her.

She stands but a moment longer, her will fading, and then takes those final steps until she can fumble for it, smooth like riverstone on her fingertips. Then she settles into her bed and begins to read.

Despite herself, despite her intention to give the brochure a quick glance and then use it, with relish, as kindling, she finds herself drawn to the glossy pages, again and again, pouring over them as though they hold some hidden truth.

For the place looks nice. Really nice.

She learns all about it, this place. A refuge, to help rebuild those who've been damaged by the war. But it's not just that. Not just a place of healing. It's a place of learning. It's a place of rebuilding. Their students take field trips, on the train, to learn about the other districts. There are concerts and lectures in subjects like history and economics and art. There are staff who are specially trained to handle difficult behavior or patients whose memory isn't quite what it was. Most importantly, there will be others there, others like Peeta.

She finds him sitting on his heels in a hidden corner in his art room, smearing formerly vibrant paint onto the white wall until it becomes a brown mush. He's got paint everywhere, all over his clothes and in his hair.

When she approaches, he goes very still.

"I'm sorry, Peeta," she says, keeping her voice soft. "I won't yell at you again."

He can't accept her apology. But he does resume his painting, using only his fingers.

"Look," she says, tipping the page down so he can see, like a map. He seems fascinated, all the pretty pictures. But he doesn't touch, his paint-smeared hands, doesn't mar all the beauty.

She leaves him to it, even though she knows from experience that the paint will dry and she'll have a devil of a time getting it out of his hair and from the many crevasses where it always seems to creep. There are only so many messes she can clean, on this night.

There's a phone number on the back, to schedule a private tour. She wonders, if they'd make an exception for her, just this once. Or perhaps several times, for later. She's already thinking ahead, already thinking so far ahead.

And so, she makes it.

She makes the call.


	11. Chapter 11

They do, indeed, make an exception, aren't even surprised when she tells them her name and asks if she can bring Peeta to visit. Just a visit, and then they'll see. She knows, somehow, that she has Gale to thank. He's marked this path for her, as he always did in the forest.

But when she goes to note the date on the calendar, two weeks out, she frowns because that can't be right. The pages seem to be several months behind. Since the doctor stopped coming so often (no change), she hasn't needed to follow along so closely. Eventually, she has to turn on the monitor, to be sure. And when she sees the month, sees the date, she understands, why she stopped. On the monitor, they're even talking about it. "Join us tomorrow," they're saying, "for a special anniversary tribute for—"

She shuts it right off.

Perhaps this, then, is why she's been so testy with Peeta. The first anniversary is always the hardest. That's what she remembers, about father. She remembers bringing food to her mother, who didn't leave her bed that day.

Katniss promises herself that she's not going to do what her mother did, no matter how badly she wants to. She's not going to vegetate in her bed. So the next morning, she understands, what she must do. She and Peeta, they're going _outside_. Get away from the house, away from the phone, have a picnic in the forest. She's never shown him the woods, not really. And besides, she needs to spend time with him, while she can. It can be a farewell of sorts, to the ones they've lost. Their final time together, before she lets him go.

Peeta perks when she tells him they're going on an _adventure_. He watches with interest as she bundles their food into little sacks.

Before they leave, the final step, she calls Gale, because she said she would when she needed to. She catches him at a bad time, she guesses, based on his curt, "Hawthorne."

But he makes time, to talk to her, as he always will. He knows, of course, what day it is. He knows it and she knows it, but they don't speak of it. They speak of other, simple things, like how Peeta has been and how the construction is going and the insane number of meetings that Gale has today. She can't fathom it, rooms of people just sitting and talking.

When they're winding down, her limited reservoir of words drying up, she blurts, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For the brochure. For getting them to make an exception."

Out the window, she sees that Peeta's impatient, her promise, pacing the yard like a little soldier, so she hangs up sooner than she would have liked. Now, they're free. She wanted to make sure to talk to Gale early, so he wouldn't worry later, if she didn't answer, on today of all days.

Then she steps outside to join Peeta, the air crisp and clear with promise. He even lets her hold his hand, at least until they reach the trees.

Into the woods they go.

* * *

The forest has awakened.

Everywhere, vines curl, mosses creep, green seeps. The winter-shed leaves have melted into something dark and fertile, from which springs new life. With each step, Katniss revives, unfurling like a petal in the sun. Holds her head higher. Breathes a bit deeper. Sees more clearly.

She'd been right—an adventure is just what they both needed, to get her mind off everything. It's been a long time since she was out with Peeta in a forest. Too long. It's been since the Games.

At first, he's timid, trailing behind her carefully, limp painful. But as they wend deeper into the trees, the forest works its magic on him as well. He stands straighter. He ranges farther. Eventually, he bounds ahead, limp melting in the warm air, inspecting this tree and that bush, glancing back in bursts of blue. She's forgotten how his eyes get in a forest, absorbing all that green.

Peeta's path is erratic. He tromps from one curiosity to another, much like Hana when she first gets to the house, a ritual. And he's loud. Wherever he goes, the animals go before him. She catches but glimpses. There, a rabbit scampering away, tail aquiver. There, turkeys gaggle and goggle, who dares disturb! And there, a squirrel chits and spits at them from high above, thinking itself safe. It's lucky she didn't bring her bow.

Today isn't about food for the body. It's about food for the soul.

And Katniss is starving for it, craving any crumb of Peeta's attention, suddenly desperate for this, which has always been in limited supply and will be rarer still, the coming months. She must imagine it, the unusual depth in his gaze, with trees in his eyes.

Abruptly, Peeta halts in his mad dash, faltering forward as though falling off a cliff, having spied something on the forest floor. He bends now, gently, gently, and plucks. When he holds something to his nose, Katniss sees that it's a flower, three white petals flared like blades of a fan. At full bloom and lovely. This time, when he looks back at her, twirling the stem between two fingers, he's almost considering. A single thought: maybe he'll extend it. For a moment, she wants nothing more in the world. She doesn't often think of the Peeta-that-was. But she remembers, the day he found a pearl.

This Peeta merely turns away, the katniss fluttering from his fingers. Forgotten.

She tries not to care, crushed beneath his boot.

Where he goes, she follows.

She'd intended to take them on a quick loop, several miles, then the meadow for a late lunch. But the day is so glorious and Peeta is enjoying it so and she doesn't want it to ever, ever end. So when they come to a certain large boulder, a huge skull with moss for hair, she takes them right instead of left. Left would have been home. Right is something else.

This time, she's careful to match Peeta's pace, herding him where she needs him to go, playing tag with him between the trees. The terrain fractures now, interspersed with increasingly larger rocks. Together, they follow this secret path, strewn by some geologic giant, like clues.

Then the trees part, a curtain, and there it is, the lake. Flanked on three sides with cliffs like sentinels, shielding it from the rest of the forest. You can get to it only if you know how. And this lake, it's no ordinary lake. It's a gaping mouth with a throat that extends deep into the earth, some forgotten cave that burst to the surface aeons ago, free at last. No one knows how deep into the earth it goes. She and Gale used to dare each other to leave the safety of its rim and dive so very deep into the abyss, sink for so long that they might not come back up.

Peeta's steps falter and still, him taking it all in. Katniss suspects this is the first time he's seen so much water up close. It's different in person, the endless deep blue of it, the ripples like breathing from the center of the earth. He just stares. Stares and stares, not knowing what to do with this much water.

So she shows him.

She takes careful steps until she stands in front of him, _watch me_. He pales at her proximity but stands his ground, eyes down, always down. She slips off her boots and socks and stands, pebbles warm under her toes, still facing him.

"Now you," she says.

He mirrors her, slow and careful, tripping a bit over his laces. She crooks an arm for him to brace on as he removes his leg, fingers flexing and rote.

Together, they hobble toward the secret staircase, the place where the rocks descend gently, like steps. This is the only way Katniss knows to enter the water short of diving off the boulders that ring the lake like a reverse moat. This lake, it's not easy to find and not easy to enter. But it's oh so worth it when you do. The water laps playfully, beckoning them like an old friend. Peeta gulps a breath at the ice that creeps over his toes, that swells up his calf. But he doesn't pull back, doesn't protest this like he does a bath.

Somehow, he knows this is different. This is not for pain. This is for pleasure.

They go slow, acclimating inch by inch. Up to their knees. Up to their thighs. Up to their waists. She lets go of Peeta then, the water holding him up instead.

When Katniss shivers deeper, up to her neck, Peeta doesn't join her, content to play in the shallows. He seems to revel in it, the weightless water, how easy it is for him to move, with only one leg.

But she doesn't want to leave him behind, alone there while she frolics over the deep. So instead she strikes out, slapping him with water. His eyebrows go up up up with it, the cold, which clings to his skin. She wonders if perhaps she's taken it too far, in yet another bid for his attention.

But then Peeta _smiles_. Oh, how he smiles. Then Peeta _laughs_. He splashes back at her, then at himself, spinning slow circles in the water. Grinning like a little boy, water sparkling on his skin and in his hair. Despite the water like a sheen of ice, Katniss feels warm, somewhere deep inside. She's made Peeta smile. She's made Peeta laugh. He's looking at her, playing with her even. He sees her.

Under his gaze, she blossoms, she exults, she preens, showing off every trick in the water that she knows, all the things her father taught her and more. Afterward, when she's had her fill of poking out her legs and tumbling down under and breaching like a whale, an arc from her mouth, she floats serenely on her back, nothing but infinite sky above and depthless water below.

In that moment, she lets herself imagine what it would have been like to bring Peeta here earlier, before the war. Before everything. If there had been no fence. If there had been no worries. She can imagine teasing him for staying in the shallows, where it's safe. He can't swim, she knows this, but that doesn't stop her from tossing her head, a challenge, as she surges ever deep, treading water.

And he'd tell her that he's perfectly content to stay right where he is. He would say something like, "I've got a great view here." Or any number of words that would make her face grow so hot she'd have to plunge back under the water. She'd have to sneaky-swim her way to grab and dislodge his ankle. And he'd let her, blithely pretending he couldn't see her coming so very slowly toward him in the clear clear water, so he'd let her topple him like a tree, all spluttering and splashing in the water waist-deep. And with her so close like that, he'd latch onto her (but gentle-like), an excuse, hands warm on her waist. And she'd accept it, this excuse, and put her own hands on his broad shoulders and maneuver them into the deep, where he can just barely touch on his tip toes, hanging over the edge. Still clinging together, so close, trembling and not just from the cold.

And then.

It's unbearable to think about. What could have happened then.

This, this is how it could have gone, in a different time, a different lake, a different Peeta. This is what she sometimes thinks about, what she sometimes dreams about before the dreams inevitably sour and she awakes screaming in the dark.

But this Peeta, he's no longer watching, inured to her antics at last. He's sitting in the shallows, partially in the shadow of a looming boulder, trying to make boats out of everything he can reach. He sails blades of grass. He rescues rocks like sunken ships, only to watch them drown again and again and again.

So Katniss just floats, body and mind, until the sun signals her that it's time, they'd best be heading back, miles to go before they sleep. Reluctantly, she frees herself from the gravity of the water, letting her feet find rocks slippery with moss. She has to help Peeta again, maneuver him carefully back the way they came. He lets her, this excuse, one of her arms slung around the bare skin of his torso. And he trembles, but it's just from the cold.

To dry, they sun themselves on a rock like lizards, its shelf their bed. Peeta's nose and cheeks are already pinked with heat and sun and fun. They can't stay much longer.

She doesn't know why she does it. Maybe because it's today. Maybe it's because she sang the last time she was out here, with Cressida and her crew. Maybe it's the mockingjays, which flutter thick in the area, like butterflies. Drawn by the music in Peeta's laugh and even her splashing, its own beauty.

Or maybe. Maybe because it's the only way she knows how to say goodbye.

She starts to sing. Beside her, she feels Peeta go very still. Looking over, she sees that his eyes are closed. He looks so calm, so peaceful. A glorious end to a glorious day, singing the sun to sleep. Saying to him in song what she can never say to him in words.

She sings it, all of it—her loneliness, her sorrow, her despair. The way she feels when Peeta shrinks from her touch, from her gaze. Her regret, at what she needs to do, letting him go. Her guilt, that she's not strong enough. Inexplicably, the mockingjays merely let her sing, this solo of sadness. There are no sounds here to mock, only to mourn. She sings every song she knows and a few more besides. She sings loud, she sings soft, she screams it. Sings until there's no more in her to sing, sound expelled like a sigh, she's dried up, withered like a lost leaf in the wind.

When she's done, when she stills, the lake stills with her, the water frozen smooth. Not a wind stirs the leaves. Not a mockingjay flutters its wings. Thousands of them perch now, hushed and reverent, waiting. And she waits with them, her mind as clear and empty as the water that lies before her, this hole to the center of the earth.

Then, something comes, welling from deep inside. First a few notes, fragile as a fawn, dissolving like dandelions. She falters, uncertain what this is, this song she doesn't know. After a beat, she keep singing, her voice swelling as she becomes more sure of herself and what she sings. A simple song, pure and good, the best song she's ever sung. This song, it's not a goodbye. This song is Peeta.

She sings of him, the shine in his face when he looked at her, the shy in his smile, the velvet in his fingertips, his wonder and awe when she kissed him first. The way he treated others, the way he treated her. The way he made her laugh, the way he made her feel, as though she wasn't alone. How he wasn't afraid, to cry when he was sad, to speak the truth. To love.

This song, the mockingjays pick up. One by one, a cascading chorus. For many minutes, the music floods around them and through them, rippling like water. Even after Katniss trails off, the song continues, these inhuman voices. Gale used to grouch that they'd never shut up, in love with the sound of their own warbles, and he'd toss stones to scamper them off.

But Gale and his stones aren't here, and so the song continues, the song of Peeta. Briefly ebbing again as the mockingjays begin to mock each other, a copy of a copy. Fascinated, Katniss listens as they create a new song of their own, drifting from her original melody, back toward their native tongue. Something wild and wonderful.

Then, only then, after the last of the mockingjays stops altogether, no new music to feed its muse, does Katniss becomes aware of another sound.

An animal sound of a different sort.

The sound is coming from Peeta.

Peeta is no longer calm. He's no longer peaceful. He looks like he's having a nightmare, eyeballs roving restlessly under his lids. His collar is ringed with sweat, hair dark with fresh damp. His fingers curl and unfurl like claws, nails ineffective against the rock.

Katniss crouches above him, poised and ready for whatever may come. Perhaps the long day has finally caught up to him. Perhaps she'll have to fend off one of his fits after all.

After the last echo warbles into nothing, he jerks once, a puppet on some unseen string. Then his eyes fly open, and he says a word.

Just two syllables.

Her name.

He's said her name.


	12. Chapter 12

A single word. One word in a year without words, a word that glitters like a beacon above a dark, roiling sea, the first light through the storm. Peeta's wide-open eyes stare at the wide-open sky, a slight frown as he searches.

"Peeta?" she breathes. Her hands flutter around his face, but she's afraid to touch, afraid that she'll wake him from this dream, that they'll both wake and Peeta will be underwater again, lost.

His eyes lock on hers, and he squints at her in the sunset, right at her. For a moment, his eyes brighten. He knows who she is. He knows that she's _Katniss_ , she's the one who belongs to the word, the one he's just said, the only word.

Peeta, she thinks. It's you. It's really you.

Peeta has come back to her at last.

Just a beat, and then his face twists into something else.

"No, no, no," he mutters, sitting up. She doesn't know what he's saying, why the word has changed. Why he's scrabbling back, as though he must escape. She tries to follow, slipping and sliding, her horizon tipped. Nothing makes sense, nothing makes any sense. She must have fallen asleep, on her rock. She must be dreaming. This can't possibly be real.

But the terror on Peeta's face, it looks so very real.

"You can't be here," he says, pushing back, off the rock, into the dirt. His eyes are wild, movements frantic. He starts looking around for something. Maybe someone. Maybe anyone.

The warm in her stomach turns to ice.

"Peeta, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Everything," he answers, he answers, he _answers_. "It's all wrong, too–" he babbles off, a string of nonsense, but she hears the word _shiny_.

"Too what? What are you saying?" Please, she thinks. Please keep saying.

"What day is it?" he demands. She's speechless because he's asking a question. She needs to do something, she needs to grab hold of him and never let him go. But before she can reach him, he's backing away, holding out a hand as if to fend her off.

"Peeta," she cries.

It's too much and too close, for Peeta surges forward and shoves her, hard. She tumbles from the rock, soaring for a long moment like a bird, and then crashes into the water. The cold shock of it bats the breath from her lungs, and she sinks like a stone. When she claws back to the surface, brushing hair and water out of her eyes, there's no one on the rock, no one on the beach. No one anywhere. Peeta is gone.

She breaststrokes frantically around the boulder from which she'd fallen, looking for the fastest way up, too far from those secret stairs. She finds it at last, a place where she can grip and haul herself up, tearing her hands, her knees in her haste. When she's at the peak, her mountain, she crouches and listens for an unbearably long moment. She's pretty sure she can hear him, crashing and thrashing in the forest ahead. Away from her, in the opposite direction from whence they came. Deeper into the wild woods.

Then she's off. Moving as quickly yet efficiently as she can, scanning for any evidence of where Peeta has gone. The forest floor here is rocky, with little sediment, leaving few clues. Still, she thinks she can almost see it, the passage his body has forced through the underbrush.

Yet, as she tries to follow, to find the little boy lost, the forest now seems to be her foe, trees reaching out pernicious fingers to rend, to tear, to trip. The woods are wild and tangled here, catching her clothes, her hair. A branch snags deeply in her braid and she has to pause, valuable seconds, yank herself free. It's as though the forest doesn't want her to find him. As though the forest seeks to hold her back.

At last, she breaks free of the bushes and the brambles, reaching a small clearing. She catches her breath and listens again. It's eerily quiet, this gloom. She can't hear him anymore. The trees stand silent, waiting, breathing. Surely Peeta can't have gone so far that she can no longer hear. Perhaps fear lent his feet an unnatural speed, even with his bad leg. Perhaps he's hiding, ducking behind a rock or log. Perhaps he's fallen down one of the many sinkholes in the area, swallowed him right up.

All these possibilities and so many more.

Everything is too quiet, too still, and she knows somehow that she's lost him. Maybe this time for good. Then she hears it, a twig that breaks softly from somewhere behind her, her only warning.

"Miss Everdeen," a voice says.

Her name again, but from a very different voice. It's incongruous, this voice, an anachronism in the forest. A voice from a different time, a different place. Her breath catches, panic rising, and she whirls, irrationally expecting to see someone she can't possibly see. Only one person ever called her that, in just that way.

There, half-hidden in the trees, a still form lounges with one shoulder against a nearby oak. And she knows him, this person who stands regarding her, nonchalant. Knows him but doesn't, arms crossed over his chest, posture oddly formal, head held high, almost regal. Impossibly, this person wears Peeta's face.

Yet this _face_. Peeta's eyes are usually puppies and spice and everything nice. But his eyes right now are nothing like that. They're a frozen tundra.

"So glad you could join us," he says, calm and cold. Something inside her freezes, at the us. "Right on schedule." He says the word all fancy, with an initial _shh_ , the way they do in the Capitol.

 _Schedule_ , he says, what is he even talking about. And how is he even talking? Peeta sounds completely rational, completely normal, speaking in complete sentences. Except, he doesn't sound like Peeta. It's Peeta's voice, Peeta's face, but it's someone else's words.

"Peeta?" she whispers.

He chuckles. "I'm afraid not, my dear. Try again." And he regards her with a bland smile that can't quite soften his granite gaze, eyes sharp and knowing. The expression is achingly familiar, one she's seen a thousand times on a monitor. The last expression she ever saw on the face of a man dressed all in white. A snake, about to strike.

She feels faint with it, the very idea. Her voice and her body tremble. "President Snow?"

He throws back his head and laughs. "You always were so very bright. Too bright." His smile is no longer bland. It's pointed, dangerous. "Yes, I have a message for you, Miss Everdeen, compliments of President Snow." He cocks his head, considering. "Or, rather, a message from me, delivered posthumously."

She doesn't know it, this big fancy word. Doesn't know how it's possible, for Snow's smile to be on Peeta's face. But she knows this—even in death, Snow has reached her.

"And the message is this: It's the thing you love most that destroys you. For me, it was power." He plucks a leaf from a low-hanging branch, inspecting it carefully, as though looking for flaws. "I had so very much of it. But that's the problem with power. The more you have, the more people want to take it away." He grinds the leaf between his fingers, drops it to the ground, inconsequential. She feels it, the crushing, all-encompassing fear, the way she always used to feel, in his presence.

"For you, it's Peeta." He fixes a laser-gaze on her face, eyes like ice. It's so very easy, to see Snow in his face. "Dear, puppy Peeta, who thought you hung the moon. Well, I fixed that."

"What have you done?" She's entranced, horrified by what bleeds from these familiar, precious features. She can't stop looking at him. His mouth, it speaks. His eyes, they express. Only, not the right words, not the right emotions, as if she peers into some dark, distorted mirror.

He ignores her, looking off to somewhere. "I can see the vids now." He flourishes fingers, as though writing in air. " _Victors battle to their death_. Or maybe they'll think it was a suicide pact, finishing what you started." He spreads his arms and smile wide. "Plenty of berries here."

She sees it now, the nightlock that clusters on the bushes, like tumors. They're surrounded by them, all these accusing eyes, their sickly aroma like death. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing," she bites, "but I'm not going to hurt Peeta."

The smile is back, that sinuous, slimy smile. "You certainly don't have to. But Peeta is certainly going to hurt you." His blue eyes gleam with it, some mania.

"No," she says, desperate. She refuses to speak to Snow any more, this ghostly leech. She steps closer, imploring. "Peeta. I know you're in there. You've had so many opportunities to hurt me. But you don't. You don't hurt me, Peeta. You won't. I know you won't. I know you."

He chuckles. "My dear, you don't seem to understand. Peeta is no longer here."

She thinks of those early weeks when Peeta had stumbled and bumbled into things, when his dinner knife had slipped (before she'd stopped giving him one), when he'd sat a little too close to the fire (before she'd stopped making one), when he'd tumbled down the stairs (before she'd installed the gates). When he'd been so uncaring of glass, the night Gale found them.

He wasn't just trying to hurt himself.

He was trying to _kill_ himself.

Because he'd known, buried somewhere inside, that he was still a danger to her. A sleeper firebomb, waiting for just the right match. Maybe it was the day, the one-year anniversary of the Rebel's victory. Maybe it was her song; she hasn't sung since Prim. Maybe it was the mockingjays.

Whatever it was, fire had sparked, burning Peeta alive. Snow had found a final way to hurt her, a final countermove, through the person she loved most. Snow had poisoned his doctors so no one would ever find out.

She can see the fire rage in Peeta's face, his eyes gleam with it, tinted red. His skin, tinged pink from the earlier fire of the sun. He's fire, and she will finally burn. She can see it in his eyes. She's always been able to see everything in his eyes.

"Now I'm going to kill you, Miss Everdeen."

"No. Peeta, you can't do this. You can't let him do this." She begs, she shakes, she slaps. But it's like mother all over again. She can beg, she can plead, but she can't reach him. Peeta remains, stoic and immutable, until she's done. Until she's crumpled and crying, alone as she's always been.

There's something then, in his face, something that's not Snow.

"I love you," he says in this horrible monotone, eyes dead, and she knows that his love will not be enough.

She twirls to run but for once, he's faster. He's too close and too big and too strong. She doesn't have her bow or her knife or anything. She's not even wearing shoes.

He grabs her braid, yanks, and her scalp is on fire. She whiplashes with the force of it, losing her feet, landing in a heap before him. Then his fists descend, here, there, everywhere, and everywhere is on fire.

Life flashes. But not all of it, just the best parts, the Peeta parts. She remembers, back to the beginning, the earthy smell of rain, the day he tossed her that bread. She remembers, floofing flour into his face while he tried to bake another loaf, him chasing her with a stick of butter.

She fists dirt and throws a handful into his face, the forest her ally again. He spits and sputters but keeps coming.

She remembers: The day Peeta first walked on his new leg. He played it off, arms outstretched like Frankenstein. They'd laughed. She'd never heard him complain about it, nt once.

She goes feral. Kicks at his artificial leg, at its intersection with flesh, and he falters, grunting in pain. But it's not enough to stop him. He's so big. He's always been so big. Even still, with his muscles soft from disuse.

They grapple, one of his forearms around her throat, cutting off the air to her windpipe.

She remembers: His arms around her in a train.

Her arms are up to protect her head. Through them, she sees his face. Blank, empty. He swings his fists methodically, like wrecking balls.

She remembers: Training with him before the first Games. Always so careful with her. She'd yell at him to stop being so gentle. She'd taunt, _Try to kill me already_.

He's killing her now, inch by inch.

Her lungs are on fire. That last fist broke something fragile inside.

She remembers: His face, his smile, his lips, his taste.

His hand lifts. And in his hand he holds a rock.

Above her, the mockingjays flock in droves, to see what all the ruckus is about. The trees boil with them, a sickening, undulating ripple of blue-black, hundreds of unblinking eyes and sharp beaks. When she screams, they scream, too, taking her pain and twisting it into something beautiful. Later, much later, someone from town might even hear it, her final call.

It's too late.

There will be no later.


	13. Chapter 13

Four notes. From wherever she is, somewhere in the deep dark, she hears them without hearing. She tries to ignore it, this long-lost melody. It's quiet down here. Lovely, dark, and deep. She's safe down here.

But the sound persists, an echo. Louder now, and closer. She's curious about it, this sound. It's a good sound, a true sound. It means: I'm okay, I'm alright, you've found me. She swims up, from the dark deep and drifts toward the elusive sound. And as she rises, she understands that she's not dead. She feels too much pain to be dead. Pain of the type she's felt before, but it never gets easier. That sound again, someone's calling her, those four notes.

Something pricks her flesh, subtle and sharp, like needles. Then those four notes, insistent. The sound, a melody taught to her by Rue. She's calling. She's letting Katniss know, that she's okay.

"Rue?" she rasps. When she opens her eyes, she stares right into a dark, wise iris. But it's not Rue. It's a mockingjay, head tipped to see, talons pricking like needles from where it perches on her chest. As it pecks at her cheek, it burbles, those same four notes.

It's trying to tell her something.

Wake up, it seems to be saying.

The other mockingjays have dispersed, droves of them. All but this little one, the one who'd stayed, the one who woke her at last, with Rue's melody. Until she shifts, and the mockingjay flutter-flies, up and away, to find its kin. Leaving her alone in the forest.

For a while, she just lies and feels it, her body, the earth holding her up. Then, a rising sense, some hunter's instinct, she's not alone. She lets her head fall to one side and sees that Peeta lies a distance to her left, limbs akimbo, looking just like he had when he ran smack-dab into that forcefield.

"Peeta," she tries to say, but it comes out a twisted groan. She claws her way up and then just holds on for a while, as it comes back to her. What happened. What Snow had done. The fire has drained from Peeta's flesh. He looks spent, fried. He looks dead. His eyes are closed, skin bleached white. A deep gash in his forehead oozes. She's not sure, but she doesn't think she did that. A rock lies where it tipped from his outstretched fingers.

He didn't hit her with it, then.

He hit himself.

In the head, from the looks of it. And heads _bleed_. Half of Peeta's face is covered in it, like spilled paint. She remembers this, from glimpses of her Mother in the kitchen after a cave-in at the mines. They'd bring them to her, miners whose blood ran dark with grime.

She remembers other things from that time, watching Mother and Prim do what they do best. She forces herself to breathe through her mouth, to approach. She forces herself to remember, what Mother and Prim would do. Ear to the chest, feel the warm tickle of breath, shallow but steady. Crack open one eye, then the other. She doesn't even know what she's looking for there, but she doesn't see anything unusual.

He lives. He breathes.

She doesn't try to move him. It's late; they won't make it home. Instead, she sets up camp, right where they've fallen. For the first time, she wishes she'd taken Gale up on his offer to procure her one of his comms. It would have come in handy right about now, reinforcements from the town. She can no longer be sure, what Peeta will do when he wakes up. If he wakes up.

She limps back to the lake, gathers their equipment, refills their canteens, and washes her face with trembling hands. When she returns, Peeta lies where she left him, pale and still.

It's the longest night.

She doesn't dare sleep, tuned to Peeta's shallow breaths. When they hitch, her heart stops. But he's just shivering from fever, from whatever Snow did to him. She finally drifts off, in the early hours of the morning, only after Peeta breathes deep and steady like the sea. Her dreams are full of impossible things, like mutts with Peeta's eyes and mockingjays who speak like Rue.

The first thing she sees, when she wakes, is that Peeta's eyes are _open_.

As always, he's awake before her, gazing up at the sky through the leaves, face dappled with shadow. She almost weeps with it, that familiar, glazed stare, the blood caked on his skin. The fire she'd fashioned between them burned out in the night, nothing but cooling embers left.

She keeps very still, watching him like she would a fawn in the forest. He breathes, he's alive. And for a few precious moments, she'd gotten a glimpse of Peeta, the real Peeta. He'd called her by name. He'd looked at her. He'd been worried for her, tried to save her. Somehow, he'd known, what Snow was going to do. She's not sure she can bear it, that brief glimpse. A lone lightbulb switched on for but a moment, her world shining so bright, only to switch off again, plunging them both back into darkness.

She sits up, slow and creaky. Everything hurts. Now she doesn't look at Peeta. Can't look to see, what he'll do, when she rises like the dead. Instead, she focuses on herself, inspecting cuts from branches and bruises from fists and a tender ankle. Efficiently, she reaches back to braid her escaped hair. Then, only then, after she's as put-together as she's going to be, is she ready to face him. Ready to face Peeta.

His gaze is a tsunami. It rolls over her, washing her insides and outsides with an incredible heat. Peeta's head has lolled to look, and he's watching her steadily. His eyes are open, and he sees. She can't quite read it, his expression. Unsure, guarded. But it's there, something flickering in his face.

Gently, oh so gently, she maneuvers herself to crouch next to him. All the while, his eyes follow her, the rest of him lying limp. He watches her as she checks him for injury, just like she'd done for herself. Watches as she dabs lightly at the cut on his forehead. Blood soaks the leaves she'd used as makeshift bandages, but the bleeding seems to have stopped during the night.

"Can you walk?" she asks.

He doesn't answer. He just looks. Looks and looks, as if he can never look enough. When she holds out her hand, he understands what she's asking, reaching out. They take their time, sitting him up, his bioleg stiff and straight. It doesn't want to cooperate as Peeta labors to his feet, leaning on her heavily, his crutch. Only when he's upright does he close his eyes, face pinched with pain, breathing heavy and quick.

She says, "Let's go home."

Together, they stagger. His bad leg gives him trouble, from where she hit him. From the grinding sound it makes, she's pretty sure it's not working right. Her ankle is twisted. But this time, she's not carrying all his weight.

They carry each other.

* * *

When they make it home, it's been hours. They're breathing heavily and they're dirty and they're sweating. Peeta hadn't made it easy, his feet catching on every root and rock, lurching and stumbling. The shirt Katniss tied around his head oozes blood, some of it still snaking tendrils down his neck.

She helps him up the steps, through the door, and into the kitchen. He sits, heavily, in a chair, head in his hands. She drops everything where she stands, her pack and his, and rummages through cupboards for supplies. It's all still there, packed neatly way up high, bandages and gauze and tiny bottles of liquids in various colors. She grabs what she recognizes and hurries back to Peeta. He's lowered a cheek to the table now, eyes closed.

"Peeta," she barks, more harshly than she intended, and he startles, her so close. His eyes crack open, sluggish.

"Here," she says, quieter now that his pupils focus. Her fingers work the knot in the shirt that she tied, hasty, around his skull. Carefully, she cleans the wound and applies a fresh bandage. All the while, Peeta is so very close, eyes riveted on her face.

Then, she picks up the phone, punches a number. When her Mother answers, she barks, "Peeta hit his head."

Katniss hasn't called her in months, not since the last time Peeta had hurt himself, falling down the stairs. But just like that, Mother shifts into triage mode. "Is he awake?"

"Now, but he wasn't when I found him." The fear that had been gnawing at her insides takes a huge chunk out of her heart. It took too long, to get him home, to where she can get help.

"Check his pupils. Are they the same size?" Katniss quickly steps over to where Peeta is looking at her. He's watching her, but vague and tired, eyes following a beat behind. It's hard to know if that's because of his head or…what's in his head. When she presses a finger to his chin, he obliges her, tilting his head up.

She gets a shock. "There's blood in one eye." A milky red cloud of it.

"That's okay," Mother soothes, sensing her rising panic. "This happens. But what about his pupils?"

Katniss looks again, still disturbed by Peeta's bloody eye. It makes him look unbalanced. Dangerous. "His pupils seem okay. Same size."

"Good. That's good."

And this is the point where Katniss should tell her that Peeta awoke, that Peeta spoke, that Peeta tried to kill her. She should tell mother, all of these things, but something stays her tongue. Because if she tells mother, it becomes real. If she tells mother, mother will tell others and then others will descend. They won't be able to help themselves, this medical miracle.

It's just that, really, a desire not to share the good news too soon. But really, it's also a desire to hold on to this good news, so very tight. For all she knows, this is a fluke, a one-time thing. Peeta was programmed to wake up just this once, and then he'll be gone again, this time forever.

"Katniss," mother repeats. "Is there anything else?"

 _Yes_ , she thinks. "No," she says.

Mother isn't convinced, but she rattles off some final instructions. Watch Peeta closely for a day. And call the doctor right away if there's any change, like if he vomits or can't stay awake. They're out of the woods, but they're not out of danger.

"Peeta," Katniss says, the same forced, bright tone she's used with him for the past year. "Let's go into the living room. We can watch the monitor for a bit, okay?"

He doesn't answer, but he follows her into the other room. She leaves him there, bundled in blankets on the couch. He turns his attention to the monitor, which she's set to news, for the first time in a long time. Might do him some good, to see what's going on in the world. Might do her some good, too.

Then she doesn't know what to do with herself. Peeta just sits there, one room away, while she cleans the kitchen, the blood. The monitor drones on a litany of topics—politics, entertainment, the newfound exploration of the badlands beyond the district boundaries. There's speculation, now, that the Capitol is not the center of the world. That there might be other people, other survivors beyond the district boundaries. Even beyond the ocean.

Every so often, between increasingly unnecessary chores (the house hasn't been this clean since they moved in), Katniss hovers like a shadow in the doorway, just in Peeta's periphery. Unerringly, his eyes find her, turning back to the monitor only after she slips away, unsettled by his knowing silence. _Say something_ , she thinks.

On the monitor, someone is showing an interesting artifact, one of the many that they're discovering, squirreled away in the depths of the mansion, the treasure trove of a dragon. A globe, the person calls it. Apparently, it's a map of the planet. Old, with land masses called strange names like Azerbaijan and Zealand and Canada. It's keeping Peeta awake, all these visual artifacts, so she leaves him to it.

She considers it, so many times, picking up the phone. So many people would want to know about this. But she can't stomach the idea of false hope, what she'll hear in their voices. By tomorrow, she'll know something. And then she can call the doctor to confirm.

The monitor keeps Peeta awake for as long as it needs to, until his head is sluggish with fatigue and pain. Until he can no longer muster the energy to track her with his eyes.

She lets him sleep.

It's another longest night.

* * *

Katniss has watched Peeta sleep before, so many times. The first time was in a cave, him shivering with fever. She's watched him sleep on a train, them sharing the comfort of a bed. And she's watched him a hundred times since then, checking on him in the morning, night, and any time in between.

This time is very different.

She's thought about this moment a thousand times, idle daydreams when she found him taking a nap in the strangest of places, curled up anywhere in the sun like a kitten. She always imagines waking him with her foot, teasing him for being able to sleep anytime, anywhere, a product of his profession and the room he shared with two brothers. But her favorite memory-dream is when he just opens his eyes, sees her, and smiles. Such a simple thing, but it's everything.

Now, she's so close to the moment, she can hardly breathe. She was up before the sun, ready to watch it work its magic. Peeta has always responded to the sun.

This morning, it's no different. Katniss watches as the sun paints Peeta's face, in all its glory. It highlights first his neck, riddled with scratches from his brush with the forest. Cups his strong jaw, dips into the hollow of one exposed cheek. Melts up his soft, expressive mouth, his nose, his cheeks. Dips his eyelashes pale yellow. Exposes the bandage at his temple, threads his hair with gold.

Under the sun's persistent touch, Peeta comes to life. The sun calls him back to himself. He sighs and shifts, eyelashes fluttering.

Wake up, Katniss thinks, on the edge of her seat. Oh please wake up.

And he does.

With a fluff of breath, Peeta opens his eyes. The sun flares, brilliant, into his face, dipping his irises in honey. He blinks against the brightness, lolling his head.

And that's when he sees her.

That moment, when his eyes focus on her face. He blinks, staring at her, as though he can't even believe what he's seeing. Then his eyes widen and he sits up, clutching his blanket around him. Looking for all the world like the young boy who she'd sat with, morning after morning at his windowsill. But there's one crucial difference. That boy never looked at her.

This one is. He's looking at her, right at her.

His face is still calm, almost a mask, but everything leaks out of his eyes—disbelief, shock, uncertainty, hope, a kaleidoscope of other emotions too fleeting to name. Until finally he settles on uncertain. His lips part, tongue peeking through as he wets them.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. His voice is toneless, almost dead, the way he'd told her that he loved her, back in the forest. She's too distracted, thrilled by the sound of his voice, to understand.

"Do you know where you are?"

He looks around, as though seeing the room for the first time. "It looks like a Victor's house, in District 12."

"Yes, that's right," she encourages.

He frowns. "But that's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because District 12 was destroyed."

She tells herself that it's good, that he knows this. He remembers, at least part of it. And anyway, how could he know all of it, him buried somewhere in the Capitol? So she explains. "They firebombed most of the district. But they left my house standing. A message for me, I think."

He doesn't push, seeming to accept this. When he doesn't ask anything more, she ventures, "How's your head?"

He considers, raising a tentative hand to the bandage, as though he's forgotten why it's there. "It hurts," he says, almost surprised. "What happened?"

She tries not to grow alarmed, that he can't remember. He was so out of it yesterday, his brain still a bit scrambled from whatever Snow did to him.

"You hit your head on a rock."

He's still looking at her as though he can't quite trust her words. "That feels about right."

"Here," she says, desperate to divert whatever is in his expression. "I brought you some medicine." His eyes drop to the two white pills nestled beside a glass of clear water. He stares at them for a long time. Too long. "Don't you want it? It will make you feel better."

He shakes his head, slight, winces. "I can't take those."

"Why not?"

His eyes are like clouds moving over the sun. They laser back to her face, unblinking. "Because you're the Mockingjay."

The name is ice down her spine. He says it so calm and careful, so matter-of-fact, like he's commenting on the weather. But she sees it now for the first time, in the details. The tension in Peeta's body. Lips and jaw tight. Fists on his knees. Sweat soaking his shirt, and not just from the sun. Peeta, he's barely holding it together. He's watching her so closely, so carefully because he's afraid. No, he's terrified. Of _her_.

In a single moment, their glorious reunion turns from dream to nightmare.

She doesn't know what to say, doesn't even know what to say. One wrong word, one wrong move, and this could get dangerous again. Peeta seems to be in his right mind, of sorts, no longer spouting Snow. This is something else entirely. And she thought she was in over her head, before. She's in so deep now, she's drowning in it.

Peeta says, "I thought you were dead."

She's a statue made entirely of ice. Doesn't even know what she can say, doesn't even know what she can do, to make this better.

"Peeta," she says slowly. He cocks his head, the sound of his name. "Listen very carefully. I'm not going to hurt you. But I'm going to stand up now, okay?"

He doesn't respond. Just keeps staring. Staring and staring.

She swallows, throat so very dry. Then she unfurls slowly from her chair, no threatening movements, until she's on her feet. She glances over to where the red phone hangs from the wall. It's right there, just a few steps from her. But also a few steps from Peeta. She doesn't think he can move that quickly, his leg and all.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she repeats. Then she moves, taking one careful step, then two, then three. Until she sidles up to the phone, all casual-like. Peeta hasn't moved from his perch on the couch, a statue of his own, just watching her.

She lifts the phone from its hook. She cradles it up to one ear, her eyes still on him, unmoving. She looks away, for just one second, to start dialing a number.

In a blink, Peeta rips the receiver from her hand, slapping her fingers away from the phone like she's a naughty child.

"I'm sorry," he says, yanking the phone off the wall, where it jangles to the floor in a tangle of wire. "I can't let you do that."

She whirls toward the kitchen, toward an exit, but it's too late. Something yanks her backward, losing her feet, and her scalp _burns_ , Peeta and his thing for her hair. She lands, heavily, on one hip. Then he drags her by the hair, across the floor, like a sack of flour. She gasps at the pain, reaching up to try and relieve some of the pressure on her head.

"Peeta," she gasps, trying to reach him, her fingers prying at his iron grip. "What are you doing?"

But he doesn't listen. He can't hear. He just drags her, inexorably, toward the door to the basement. She scrabbles around as he opens it, trying to kick out at anything she can reach. This time, he's ready for her, knows what to expect, using her hair as leverage to keep out of her radius, she a puppet on his string.

Then he shoves her through the door. Just like before, when he'd shoved her off a rock. Then, it was to save her. This time, it's not. She tumbles, head over heels, down the stairs into the mawing black.


	14. Chapter 14

When her eyes creak open, she can't see, can't breathe, can't move. She panics, mouth working uselessly, until her lungs remember how to breathe and she coughs, hoarse and thick. Something comes up and she spits. She's dizzy and feels like she might vomit, she smell of blood on her lips. She's upright, her back against something hard. Wood. Her inhales are shallow, in part because there's rope tied tightly around her torso, thick loops of it, wrenching her hands back behind her, wrists fused.

Slowly, it comes. She's in the cellar, tied to one of the support beams with some of Gale's old rope, the stuff she keeps down here with other spare supplies. She feels a sudden panic, never been good with closed-in spaces, preferring the open sky, a forest stretching in all directions, her feet taking her where they will. Urgently, she wrestles with rope, as if she's prey caught in one of Gale's traps.

But the rope might as well be made of stone. She forces herself to breathe deep, cleansing breaths. Until her head stops swimming and her stomach stops churning and her throat stops rasping. Until the panic fades to a dull throb in her heart.

It's near dark down here, like night, a stark contrast between the earlier bright of the sun. No windows into which light could seep and creep, merely a neon strip from beneath the door. She sits still, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. Vaguely, she remembers a tumble down the narrow stairs. Her back is tender in at least two places, having caught the edge of at least one of the concrete steps. Her ankle throbs, the same one from before.

She tries to remember, everything that's down here. The cellar is barren, a little-used space. She recalls extra supplies, a small sink next to a deep freezer in the corner that has a few frozen slabs of meat. If she can get free, she'll have water. And food, if it comes to that.

But she doesn't think she'll be down here long enough to need it. Someone will come looking for her soon, Sae or Thom. If she doesn't answer, they'll try again. A day or so, two at most. They'll break a window to get in, if need be, surely concerned about why she won't answer. In the meantime, she needs to get out of these ropes, then find something down here she can use as a weapon.

Methodical now, she tests the rope, feeling for flaws, flexing for give, fingers tracing any strands they can reach, woefully few. She begins to worry a frayed strand with a nail, slouched awkwardly to give herself leverage. But after many minutes, she's succeeded merely in rubbing her skin raw. She knows now why the rabbits in Gale's traps sometimes gnaw at their own flesh, anything they can do to be free. Anything they can do but sit and wait for a sure death.

Death, she doesn't like to think of it. That's twice now that Peeta could have killed her. Instead, he shoved her, he restrained her, down here in the dark. Perhaps he left her down here to keep her safe, in his own way. She has to believe, that it means something. Or maybe nothing about this makes sense, this madness, Snow's poison, Snow's hate coursing through his veins.

If only she can speak to him, she might be able to break through. He'd broken through to her once, when she was in the throes of the tracker jacker venom. She'd thought he was but a dream, this Peeta who she thought had betrayed her, thrown in his lot with the Careers, helping them to anticipate what she might do.

She reached him once, with her voice. She has to try again.

"Peeta," she warbles, fighting for a soothing calm. "It's Katniss. Are you there? Peeta, let me out of here." And she continues like that, telling Peeta that it's Katniss, she needs to talk to him, please don't leave her alone down here. She calls to him until she's hoarse, until her voice can call no more. Then silence is an avalanche that smoothers. She almost can't breathe, the weight of it. Her thoughts, her fears are the only fireflies in the darkness.

The biggest fear—is Peeta alive?

She grits her teeth and keeps rubbing at the rope.

She burns through one finger, two finger, three, like matches. She's fire, but the rope won't burn, twined stubborn and strong. She manages to fray only herself, her flesh and her nerves, pain licking up her wrists and arms to her neck, until her blood becomes sluggish in her veins. Blessed relief, when her limbs slip off to sleep, dragging her with them.

Yet sleep, true sleep, is nigh impossible, everything too hard and too tight, nowhere to lay down her head, no soft green pillow. She's slept on earth before, but not stone. In shadowy, elusive dreams, she can't move, even though she must, run so far and fast to escape fat spiders and swollen snakes that swarm in an inky pit. She surges in terror, heart thumping like a rabbit, to find she's in an anaconda choke, gurgling and thrashing, ropes cutting and burning until reality returns.

Everything aches, at least the parts she can still feel—eroded fingertips, mouth like a fracture in marble, eyeballs rolling with sand. She drifts in an endless cycle, head tipping and falling toward her sternum, startling her awake. Only to sag again when her eyelids drop closed, the weight of mountains.

* * *

She wakes again, this time to some sound, as if through meters of water. Her head lifts, neck creaks, heart leaps. There's been no sound for so long, her ears had almost forgotten how to hear.

She listens intently. The sound comes again, a knock from somewhere up above. A muted sound, but it drives back the darkness, a reminder that there's life. That there are people who care about her, somewhere up there above. Sae's knocks are soft, if she knocks at all. So this is probably Thom, come to tell her how the rebuilding is going.

She screams then, she rails, she flails. Strains against the rope like vines. Slaps a bare foot against concrete, anything to make some noise of her own.

Then she listens again. But the knocking has stopped, silence rippling in its wake, no indication that Thom could hear. Certainly not over the din outside, all of the grinding and smashing and screaming of metal. She feels lightheaded, the thought of a rescuer so close. Workers, swarming like ants but a few meters away. And she, buried alive. Thom had been right, to worry about Peeta. And Gale. And the doctor. She's the only one who couldn't see it.

Silence smothers.

Then, just as she's sure Thom must have gone away, she hears a new sound, from somewhere within the house. Footsteps. Heavy, erratic, and hope surges again, at what these footsteps mean. They mean Peeta. They mean that Peeta is alive, after all. Thom's knocking roused him, from wherever he'd buried himself. She hears him take one step, then two, his weight heavy. From the sounds of it, he's having more trouble with his leg, even worse than in the forest.

The door at the top of the stairs opens, as if on a breeze, and she winces at the brilliant, impossible light. She squints as two mismatched feet (one real, one not) take step by agonizing step, with ample pauses in between. The bioleg weezes, clearly on its last leg. She almost cackles at it, this ridiculous thought. She almost cries.

Peeta's alive. As he descends into hell, she sees that he still wears the same blood-dripped clothes from the forest. When he reaches the last step, he doesn't come any closer. Just crouches at the bottom step, peeking at her through the railing, as though she's some dangerous creature in a zoo.

"Don't worry," he says. "He's gone." He leans his forehead, as though he struggles to keep his head up.

"He'll be back," she gasps. Thom wouldn't give up on her. Not like that.

He just shakes his head, then mutters, "I don't think so." The words are low and slow, it takes her a while to understand.

Then comes the fear. "What did you do?"

In response, he holds out his hand, almost guilty, like a six-year-old with a report card. In his palm is a crumpled piece of paper.

"What's that?"

"A note."

"About what?"

"You should know," he grumbles, turning his face away. "You wrote it." She doesn't understand, what note. And then it hits her. She leaves notes sometimes for Sae, when she's gone hunting. If Peeta had found one of her old notes, if Peeta had tacked it to the door… Thom would absolutely have believed it. Believe that she took Peeta off to some hideaway in the woods, to spend these days in peace. _It will be loud_ , he'd warned her. He'd think she finally heeded his warning.

"He'll be back," she tells herself. And he will. He or Sae, they always check on her.

Peeta just shrugs. "By that time, it will be too late."

It's ominous, the thought of what Peeta will do next. She child-proofed the house. No knives, nothing sharp. Still, there are so many things he could still use as a weapon, if he chooses.

"What are you going to do?" He doesn't answer, just heaves himself back to his feet, starts the arduous journey up the stairs. "What are you going to do?" she repeats, a snarl now. "Kill me? This isn't you, Peeta. You're not a killer." He still doesn't answer, still trudging up and away. "Peeta," she trills, rough and desperate. "If you do this, you're just like the Mockingjay."

He stops then, frozen halfway between the dark and the light. She can't quite see it, his face in shadow.

"I won't kill you," he says. Irrationally, she feels better, this promise. Then he adds, "I won't have to."

He leaves her to darkness and despair.

* * *

Katniss never liked the dark. It was her nemesis in the forest, an inexorable hunter that stalked her steps, forcing her back under the fence, before curfew, or else. It flooded the mines, draining the light from people's eyes and stooping their bodies. She can still see, its effect on Gale.

Darkness is what stole her father from her, swallowed him whole.

Now, darkness presses on all sides, blinding her, choking her. Darkness is her chrysalis, but its purpose is not to nurture or protect. It's purpose is to break down and destroy. She can feel it, blurring at her edges, the way the hunger gnaws on her insides. She ignores them, these pangs, until they go away.

Time is meaningless, down here in the darkness. When she can no longer keep her eyes open, she closes them, a different kind of darkness that brings mutts and screams. Darkness seeps in to her very soul, she the worst of all miserable worms, here in her cocoon where she belongs. She blames herself. This happened because she left Peeta at the lightning tree, framed by darkness. Or because she cupped a handful of dark berries. Snow did this to Peeta because of her. To hurt her.

Her thoughts go down, so very deep down into the deep dark. She knows, from the pit of her soul, that she should have ended it, long ago, when she had the chance.

* * *

 _Drip_ , goes the sink. It's started up again, this maddening, intermittent sound. Torture, for water to be _right there_. And even the food, the frozen venison in a freezer but a few steps away. She thinks she can smell it, the meat. If she could salivate, she would, at the memory of juices running down her chin.

A whisper of a thought: _Gale_. But she pushes it away because he isn't here and he won't come, not this time. Peeta is her only hope. Not this twisted, sick version of him, fever in his skin. But her Peeta, the one she's always believed is somewhere deep inside.

Her hope for this is like a flare, suffusing her with heat. Despite how hard she's always tried to fight it, she's always hoped that Peeta, her Peeta, was somewhere inside the cage of his mind, walled off somewhere.

If only she can reach him.

At this point, she has to try. It's been days. Two or three, she can't be sure. And she can't know, when Thom might try her door again. Or when Sae might recover from her sickness. All she knows is that she's delirious and dizzy and nothing feels quite real. It would be so easy, to just let the darkness smother her fire. She's close, nothing but embers somewhere deep in her chest.

She tries everything she can think of. She says his name. She cries, she flails, she screams. Through it all, Peeta remains silent. She can't hear him, doesn't see him, but she can sense him. Somehow, she knows he listens. She knows this as surely as she knew that Peeta is still in that shell, somewhere.

Waiting for the right spark.

A spark, she thinks, like…

She remembers, then, what started this all. The day at the lake, so very long ago now, in another lifetime. An impossibly bright memory in all this darkness. The spark that ignited Peeta's madness.

She begins to sing. Softly at first, then swelling as her vocal chords warm. Her voice breaks often and she has to stop to breathe, but she keeps singing. She sings and sings, calling to him in the only way he might listen. Imagines him somewhere in the farthest reaches of the house, as far away from her as he can get, hearing the melody like a waft of fresh bread, irresistible.

She sings for as long as she can.

This time, there are no footsteps. No sign that the door is about to open until it does, as though Peeta had been sprawled somewhere nearby. She almost can't tell, that the door has opened, for this time there is no light. It's night.

Yet still, the door opens, a creak. Just a sliver perhaps, but it's enough, it's a crack, it's a way in. She keeps singing, a song she'd sung often as a child, the one Peeta remembers best. She sings the song, again and again, an infinite loop. She sings as though her life depends on it.

The door creaks open farther. She feels it now, a waft of fresh air. And she hears it, the footfall on the stairs. From the sound, the foot is bare. And the foot is singular. She listens as it takes little hops, down the stairs. She's doing it, enticing him down with the sound of the Valley Song, off-key and wavering as it is. Her voice isn't working quite right. Nothing is working quite right.

When Peeta reaches the landing, she trails off, a minor note, the song incomplete. He's poised, somewhere there in the gloom. She can almost see him, a sinister shape, the stuff of nightmare. What will he do now? What will he even do?

There's a click from above and a single, bare bulb illuminates, a dangling chain.

"Peeta," she breathes, forgetting herself.

In just a few days, he already looks so changed. Worse, much worse, than when she last saw him. Like her, he must not be eating. Or sleeping, from the looks of the purple smudges below his eyes. Dark, erratic stubble dots his chin. His hair is a greasy mop. His bandage is a blotch of brown, unchanged since she last touched it. Blood stills floods one eye, that dangerous, unbalanced look.

He blinks rapidly, eyes darting furtively, unable now to even focus on her face. "Where did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That song."

Her brain is sluggish, unable to follow wherever it is that he goes. "I didn't hear it from anywhere."

"Mockingjays can't sing," he accuses. "Not by themselves."

One could. In the forest. Little Rue-bird.

"Peeta, let me help you."

One of his eyes twitches at that, a tic. His eyes rove. "That's what they all say."

"No," she says. "Don't listen to them. There's nobody else. There's just us. We need help. Both of us."

"I won't fall for that," he says, his voice cold. "Not again."

She doesn't know what he means. She can never know what he means, this little fantasy playing out in his head. The fantasy that has become her sobering reality.

He shifts, palming the railing, as if he's going to head back up the stairs, her voice extinguished, nothing to keep him here. Panic presses, pounding her heart. He can't leave her here, not again, not in this darkness. She has only a bit of sand left in her hourglass, draining away. Peeta helped her once, when she was so far again. He has to do it again. He must.

"Peeta," she calls, her last chance. "Will you stay with me?"

He jerks as if stung. When he swings to look at her, his face is white as a skull, eyes caverns on a cadaver. "What did you say?"

"Stay. Please." She can't face it, more hours down here, in this darkness without a name. She doesn't want to die down here, alone. If she has to die, she wants to die in a forest, surrounded by light and life. She wants to sink down, to a final bed in the dark, fertile earth, where her remains will nourish the trees. Not here, in the dank dark, covered in her own filth.

Peeta teeters on some brink, gripping the railing so tight his knuckles are bone-white. He looks up, at his escape up the stairs, jaw clenching, as if gathering his strength to make the climb. And she knows somehow, if he takes those final, staggering steps, if he follows the murky moon, she'll lose him. That door will close to her, likely forever. She'll die down here, this Victor's tomb. He can't last much longer, and neither can she.

"Stay," she whispers, a final prayer, too soft for him to hear.

Yet somehow, he hears. His face ripples with something, he takes a harsh breath. And then, through lips warped and fractured with thirst, she hears him. A single word, ripped almost against his will: "Always."


	15. Chapter 15

In the wake of this word, this important word, Peeta stares at her, eyes dark with shadow. So dark she can't see the color of them, pupils like the depthless hole in her father's lake. The eyes of a madman.

Yet stay he does. He limps back down the stairs, giving her a wide berth, then eases to the ground in front of the freezer, propping himself to face her, as if he can't look away. Scant meters apart, but it might as well be miles. He glares at her as though she's a devil. Everything about his body, his expression, screams hostility and distrust.

The single bulb above flickers, erratic.

"Peeta," she blurts, a gamble, a prayer, a question from their past: "What's your favorite color?" She wonders if he'll recognize it, his first attempt at friends. She'd told him then, that she wasn't good at it. Wasn't good with words, either. But now, words are all she has. And Peeta, maybe words are the only thing that will reach him. His own, though. Maybe, if she keeps him talking, he'll talk his way back to her. He'll talk his way out of this nightmare.

But he just turns his head away and mutters, "There are no colors."

Not encouraging, but she keeps at it, asking him a litany of innocuous questions, anything she can think of, just to see what he'll say. How old are you? Where are you from? What was your favorite subject in school? She plays doctor, probing his mind for sensitive areas, for injuries. Mapping out the topics that seem safe, the questions he'll answer. Probing at the edges of his sanity.

She finds that he'll answer the simple, safe questions, although his answers aren't always correct, like how he's a year behind on his age. Other questions about his past give him pause. It takes her time to figure out which ones, usually ones about his mother or the Games. But she's got loads of time. Or not enough, depending on how you look at it. She can feel her body failing, but not from lack of food. Hunger is an old friend she can handle. Already, she's put it out of her mind, the gnawing in the pit. But thirst. Thirst is another matter, a burn in her throat. Her skin feels tight and brittle.

Safe subjects exhausted, she moves into new territory. She's doing this for herself as much as for him. She pushes at him, prods at him, testing his limits. He's the animal in a trap, not her.

"Why did you leave me down here?"

"You're the Mockingjay." The word is a curl on his lip.

"Yes but…" She searches for them, the right words. "What are you going to do with the Mockingjay?"

"Nothing. I'm just going to wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Hunger." He stares off into the past, eyes glazed with a mania. "I've seen it before. I watched it kill a girl, once." He looks at her, fierce and defiant. She recognizes it, how he used to look, standing before the Capitol throngs.

She keeps his gaze. If she can keep it, his eyes on her, she can sway him. She can do it. "That was me, Peeta. I didn't starve. You threw me some bread, out into the rain."

He shakes his head, growing agitated. "I should have gone to her. I should have given her that bread. But I was afraid. Of what, a little beating? Instead, I watched her waste away and die."

She's sick with it, this glimpse into the way that Snow has twisted things. He's corrupted everything that's true and good.

"No, that's not how it happened. Peeta, look at me." He does, anguish twisting his features, hair all askew, bandage holding on by a prayer, slipping into one eye. "You threw the girl that bread. You saved her life. _My_ life. I was that girl. Can't you see? That girl was me. I'm alive. You saved my life. You saved Prim's life. Peeta," she sobs, his name. She can't believe it, that he's got it so very wrong.

Something shifts in his gaze and she thinks, for just one second, that she's reached him.

"Primrose," he says, tasting it. He knows the name. But that's all he says. Doesn't complete the thought, doesn't explain what she means to him. He wonders, if they erased Prim, too, like they'd erased his memories of her. Then Peeta's face grows hard, resolute. He says, "Yet another person you killed."

She rages then, can't help it, surging against the ties that bind. "I would _never_ kill Prim! I volunteered. I tried to save her!" She can hear it, her hysteria. "They killed her. They killed my sister."

Peeta draws back, cowering against the freezer as though it can somehow protect him. It doesn't help, to add her emotion to his own, him already teetering so close on the brink.

She forces back the panic, the rage, the fear, shoves it back down deep. Focuses on something tangible, something real. "Where's your leg?"

He frowns. "Right here." He waggles toes, his real toes. They're dirty, nails uneven and long.

"No, I mean your bioleg."

"Oh, that. It didn't want to walk any more." He rubs absently at his stump. It's small and wasted compared to its healthy counterpart, like withered fruit. Then his fingers still. "Don't look at me!" he screams, spittle flying. "Don't even look at me."

She obliges, looking away, closing her eyes against the spit that spews. It's the first time she's provoked an emotional reaction. She supposes she shouldn't have asked about his leg, a sensitive subject.

They're quiet for a long time. So long that she's pretty sure she dozed off, these sips of sleep.

Then, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" she rasps, head jerking, so tired, so very tired. But she needs to keep him talking, always needs to keep him talking.

"Why did you take my leg?"

"I didn't. That was Cato. He chopped it right off." She needles him like this, dropping little lies, just to see what he'll do. To see what he remembers.

"No," Peeta says. "Cato just chopped into me. You're the one who found me. You ate it. You ate my leg. Cannibal."

They're getting dangerously close now, to the cave scene. She can only imagine, how Snow has twisted that, so much glorious footage to play with.

"Is that what you did to Rue as well? Did you eat her?"

She almost retches, the thought. "No. Marvel speared her."

"Speared her with what?"

She can't quite follow, the opposite of logic. "A spear."

"Liar."

"Why would I lie?" He doesn't answer, just shakes his head, as though he can't even believe that she has to ask. "Peeta, why don't you believe me?"

"I believed you once. When you said it was real. When you kissed me." A truth that Snow didn't even have to taint. "Then you _poisoned_ me."

"What?"

"I was hurt and I was sick and you tried to poison me with syrup."

And of course. She put him to sleep in a cave. "I was trying to help you."

"That's what they all say!" he roars, a reflex. "And then they bring out the shiny, sharp things."

She doesn't want to think about it, things that are sharp and shiny. The pain, the torture. But she does want to understand, this idea of a _they_.

"Peeta," she says slowly. "Do you remember President Snow?"

His eyes grow glazed and cloudy, the way they do when there's some truth that's been twisted. She's learning them all now, the signs. The tells. "Yes."

"Do you remember what President Snow did to you?"

She wonders, how they could possibly have made him forget.

He nods, face white. "Where is he?" he asks, voice high like a child's. He's _afraid_. "Is he coming here?" The thought clearly terrifies him, voice shaking, panting.

"No. He's dead."

"Did you kill him?" For the first time, Peeta says that as though it's not a bad thing, her killing someone. It's almost like he wants her to have killed Snow.

She thinks about this, her arrow pointed straight at Snow's heart. What might it mean to him, if she told him she'd done it. "No," she admits, the truth.

He looks away, disappointed.

He doesn't believe her.

He can't.

* * *

It becomes difficult to talk, moisture leeched from her bones. Her tongue swelling in her mouth. Peeta doesn't fare much better, slumped heavily, chin almost to his chest, muttering and twitching erratically. The bulb above them finally goes out, leaving them to the gloom. From somewhere above comes the moon, distant and too far away.

Someone narrates her delirium. _This is the end, folks_ , says Caesar Flickerman, and the crowd roars their approval. He stands in the cellar with them in a neon white suit, flashing his fangs. There's a reason he dubbed them the Lethal Lovers. Look at them, in their little cave. This time, they're both dying, poison in the blood. No parachute to save them. No one's even watching.

It's fitting somehow, that they die like this. Together, yet alone.

* * *

"Hey," a voice says. "Hey." Someone's trying to wake her. It's getting harder and harder, to open her eyes.

Her head lolls, vision swims.

"The girl," Peeta says. "The one I let starve."

Yes, she tries to say. To keep him going even if she can't.

"You said she didn't die?" He's watching her carefully now, eyes fever-bright. He's clutching himself, trembling from it.

She shakes her head.

"And you say that this girl was you?"

She nods. He grows agitated, ripping at his hair with his hands.

"The problem is," he says, "I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up." She has nothing to say to this, nothing she can possibly add. "Do you know what's real?" he asks.

"Not…" she says, forcing her voice, "…anymore." Rocks scraping against rocks, is what she sounds like.

"You don't look so good."

"I'm dying."

"I don't…" he says, then seems to struggle, tripping over his own tongue. He tries again, forcing it out. "I don't want you to die."

"Then give me some bread," she sighs. She can hardly remember it, some long-forgotten dream. It was a bit like this, life draining out.

And Peeta blinks. For the first time in hours, his limbs stir. Twitching, as if a puppy in sleep.

"Bread," he says, as if the very word gives him strength. The word hangs in the air like a hawk, poised to strike. The word is life. The word is Peeta.

He pulls his knee to his chest. Reaches up, to grip the freezer above. Pushes and pulls until he's standing. Then he limps, slowly, holding on to whatever he can reach, until he's to the stairs. Until he's up the stairs. Until he's gone.

Peeta's left her. Again. Left her behind.

But.

The door stays open.

She doesn't even know what it is, this sudden square of light, so long in the dark. It burns; she can't even look. Somewhere, up there, it's daytime, she can scarcely imagine it.

Peeta is gone for a very, very long time. She slips into that in between place, day and night, dark and light. She drifts. Her hunger, her thirst have nearly consumed. She can barely keep her crusted eyes open. She's only vaguely aware, the sounds he makes above, the clanking and the clatter.

But then she becomes aware of him again, when his shadow blocks the light, at the top of the stairs. The silhouette even has two legs. When he comes close, the closest he's come, there's flour on his cheeks and in his hair and on his nose. But all she can see, all she can really see, outstretched in his palm, is a squat, misshapen loaf, singed on one side but golden on the other. The smell makes her faint with need and want. The smell _hurts_.

"I can bake," he exclaims. "I can bake!"

She's drunk on it, that glorious, viscous smell. She thinks she's going to pass out, just from the smell of it.

"I should have gone to her," he whispers. "I should have handed her the bread."

Then he holds it out, in his hand.

"Here," he says. "I made it. For you."

He's brought her bread. He's brought her water. It's just right, this prison. Of course, she can't take it, her hands are useless. She can't even feel them, not anymore. She's not sure that she even has hands.

Eventually, he realizes this, bending down to kneel before her. Then he helps her, tearing off pieces with dirty, bloody fingers, dipping the bread into the water, softening it for her unhinged jaw, her teeth like rolling rocks.

She's wary, at first, to eat from his hand. For all she knows, he could have laced the dough with poison. On purpose or not, it's impossible to tell. But this bread, it takes like bread. It takes like home. If she has to die, she'll die like this. Bite by bite, he brings her back to life. She can feel it, the bread warming her insides, giving her energy. Giving her strength.

He holds a glass to her lips, gulps of cool. She starts to cry, then, huge, choking sobs. Fat, rolling tears. She has the strength to cry again.

"Don't cry," he says. "Please don't cry."

Peeta, she cries. My god. Peeta.

She eats bread until she can't eat any more.

He's so very close. She could stretch out and kick him, if her legs would even move. But her spine has fused to the wood, limbs contorted unnaturally for days.

"Untie me," she demands weakly, like she used to tell him to pick up his fork. Or tell him not to hide from her under the covers.

Impossibly, he skirts around to oblige. Fumbles a bit, with the knots.

"I don't know," he says. Nothing he does loosens anything. Peeta always double-knots his shoelaces, nice and tight.

"Remember Finnick?" she asks.

"He's a total peacock," Peeta mutters, rote and parroting. It's a good sign. Maybe.

"Remember about his knots," she urges.

He plucks a bit longer at her bindings, back there somewhere behind where she can't see. Then he finally finds it, some crucial loop, and pulls. And just like that, the ropes come tumbling down and she with them, sagging to the floor like one of Hana's dolls. Everything in her screams. Her arms and legs are unresponsive prosthetics. Her spine is a whip of fire.

When she tries to move, it burns.

The scream inside bubbles out, can't hold it in any longer. Peeta startles with the force of this eruption. He whimpers, "What can I do, what can I do?"

She can't even hear him, screaming so raw, the blood rushing back, filling her with fire.

Peeta hovers nearby, touching her first here and there. Tentative touches, like she's not quite real. She can't even feel it, his fingers on her shoulder, her heel. But he doesn't seem to know what to do, doesn't seem to understand where he can get leverage.

He shouldn't move her. She knows this.

And yet.

"Peeta," she croaks. "I need…"

But she can't say it. Can't say that she needs a doctor. Can't say that she needs her mother. Shouldn't use them, either of those words. She knows that much, all those hours spent probing at Peeta's mental wounds.

"…people," she grits. "I need people. Can you bring me to them?"

"But you're the Mockingjay." For the first time, he doesn't say the word as though it's a snake. He says the name like it's a final sigh, poison seeping from the blood. Peeta's eyes, for so long covered with ice, begin to crack.

"No," she says, this final truth. "No. I'm not the Mockingjay. I'm just me. I'm Katniss."

And Peeta's head whips up. He leans forward and looks at her intent, puzzled, desperate, as if he's trying to read the truth in her face. His eyes are almost clear, as clear as she's seen them in days.

"Katniss?" he asks. "Katniss, are you there?"

His eyes, they fill with tears.

"I'm here," she sighs. "I'm here."

Rather than reassure him, this seems to alarm him. "You shouldn't be here. You should be outside, in a forest, under the trees, where the birds can hear you sing. You're not safe here. You're not safe with me."

When she doesn't respond, oh so tired, he struggles to his feet.

"Go," he says, shouting down at her. "Get out of here!" But she doesn't move. She can't. "Go!"

She sees him, she hears him, but her body won't do what he's asking. It's too much, the strain of these last days. She's kept herself awake for so long, peppering Peeta with questions.

"I can't go," she says, soft now. "You'll have to go for me."

He's frozen, mute, he doesn't understand. Yet somehow, he does as she asks, dragging himself up the stairs. As though he's a drowning man clawing for the surface.

Katniss watches him go through the flame that licks at her edges, blurring her vision red-hot, boiling her blood. Then the fire, it burns her right up.


	16. Chapter 16

Thom's eyes drift to the Victors' house for days, in the interstices of other tasks, ever since he found the note on the front door. The one that said Katniss had gone hunting and would be back in a week. Granny Sae had clucked at him not to worry, that this is what the girl does. "With Peeta?" he'd countered, and Granny's lips had pressed into that line that means it's not her place.

Still, the note gnawed. Thom couldn't stop thinking about it, the way it was upside down, the text faded. Gale would skin him alive if anything happened to Katniss on his watch, the promises he's made. So Thom had knocked on her doors frequently in the next days, front and side, trying the handles. He even peeped in some windows, which betrayed nothing amiss.

Now, his crew is winding down for the day, fading with the sun. Thom finishes dissecting a blackened window frame, stacking the pieces so they'll be easier for the machines to grind. He's weary to his bones, faltering under a mountain of never-ending rubble. At least, out here, there's no danger of unearthing a leering skull. His eyes drift back to the house, as he's done for days, hoping for some sign of life. This time, he gets a jolt.

Someone has emerged.

A dark figure stands on the porch, blinking in the light of the setting sun. He's not quite close enough to see who it is, but it doesn't look like Katniss. And it doesn't look like Peeta. It looks like a vagrant, perhaps a morphling from district 6. Free at last from the boundaries of their district, they've scattered like seeds in the wind, starting to pop up in all kinds of unexpected places. He looks behind the person to see that Katniss' front door is blown wide for the first time in five days.

He drops his tools and strides over. "Can I help you?" he calls, but the person doesn't seem to hear him above the din. Thom's steps quicken the closer he gets, some nameless urgency. "Can I help you?" he repeats.

The person, a ragged boy, shakes his head, upon which he sports a rusted wound. "No," he mumbles. "Don't help me." The voice, it's familiar.

"Son?" Thom says, touching the boy's shoulder. Immediately, the boy shrugs away, coiling into himself.

"Not me," he repeats, stronger now. "Her." His eyes shoot up at last, boring into Thom's face with a feverish intensity. With rising horror, Thom sees that he knows these eyes. They're Peeta's eyes, too big for his wasted face. And it's Peeta's voice, his familiar voice, rough with disuse. "Help her!" Peeta begs.

And he falls.

* * *

Later, after everything—the hospital, the surgeries, the media storm—Katniss hears the story. How Thom was the first to see Peeta emerge from the house, the only signal he could think to give, himself. Thom looked up from under his yellow hard hat and there was the carcass of Peeta, bones waving like a flag.

So many Capitol contractors saw him, this shocking apparition, there was absolutely media attention. The papers, the monitors, the works. The story came out then, what the hijacking really meant. The doctors found that Snow's hijack released one final burst of venom—the size of a thimble—into Peeta's bloodstream. The mechanism, they say, was ingenious, enough venom to kill a bear, a failsafe to tie out all loose ends. Peeta was supposed to kill Katniss and then the venom was supposed to kill Peeta. Poison, Snow's best and final weapon. Only, Peeta didn't kill her. And she didn't let the venom kill him.

Now it's been weeks since the cellar, some of which she spent sleeping, to recover from minor neurosurgery on her spine. She's in the Capitol, for there are no hospitals in 12. The first thing she asks, when she finally wakes to light and bright is, "Can I see him?"

"Not yet," they say. This time, they're not taking any chances. They're going over him, neuron by neuron, to make sure the bomb is diffused. Overreacting to their previous ignorance, of how deep Snow's poison could seep.

She fidgets and fumes for days, pressure mounting until she's about to snap, biting her tongue at all these people who are back to telling her what to do. So many times she considers sneaking out of this nature-forsaken room, finding Peeta wherever he is, and taking him home, where they both belong. But she doesn't. Not this time.

She's dozing when she hears a gentle "Wake up, sweetheart." Rolls over to someone leaning against her door.

When she sees who it is, her anger swells, at this known target. "You look terrible."

"Is that how you greet an old friend?" Haymitch says, eyebrows raised at her vehemence. He looks thinner, more somber and gray than she remembers. Yet his eyes crackle a startling blue. The last time she saw his eyes like this, it was when he was very young, the footage of his Games. "No offense, but you've also looked better."

She pushes to a seat, crossing her arms over her woeful chest. She's still regaining it, her color, her weight, insisting on the natural route. "I didn't think you were coming."

He saunters in and swings a nearby chair to sit on it, backwards. "I was out in 11, helping with the reconstruction, when I heard. Came on the first train."

"Helping," she scoffs, still bristling. "Helping yourself to their liquor, more like it." She doesn't even know, why she's so angry. Eleven is so very close to twelve.

Lines deepen in Haymitch's face. Yet uncharacteristically, he doesn't rise to the bait, letting her words flow over him like a smooth stone. Instead, he stays focused, getting to the heart of it. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Her throat burns, anger dissipating like mist. "Well," is all she says, looking away. He rarely speaks so soft and true. It's not like he could have known, no one could have known.

"There are things I needed to do," he explains, "all kinds of depositions, me and the other Victors. And that's actually why I'm here. I have news."

"About Peeta?"

"Not exactly. It's about you. President Paylor has agreed that you've done your time, you're free, all restrictions dropped. You can go anywhere you want."

"I want to see Peeta."

"Oh, I've so missed your broken record." His tone is dry. "Gale's your ride. He'll be here shortly."

Katniss has already eased off her bed. "Why do I need a ride?"

"To get to Peeta," Gale says, from where he darkens the door. He takes a couple of steps in and hovers as Katniss finishes with her shoes. "Sorry I didn't get here sooner. Some last-minute…convincing."

"Enjoy the reunion," Haymitch says, already edging out of the room. He hesitates, patting the doorframe. "By the way, I've been sober for 370 days, count 'em. Too much to do." With a wink, he strides away, off to do whatever he does.

Katniss stares in the wake of this bomb, then looks to Gale, who shrugs. "Turns out, there's a cure. There's always been a cure. Guess he didn't want it, not until the Games were over." He holds out a hand. "You ready?"

She takes it with a nod, but that's a lie.

She'll never be ready, not for this.

* * *

"There's something you should know," Gale says, after they're tucked inside some sleek, slung glider. They drive down a lonely road that spears through ancient, wild woods rising on either side, an evergreen tunnel that transports them into another world. The glider slips swift and silent through the trees, with only a soft undertone of something called classical music, one of many things that Snow had repressed in the districts. The music is a haunting melancholy, a contrast of sounds both light and dark, so many instruments she can't name. It reminds her, as so many lost things do, of Prim and Rue.

As they drive, Gale tells her, this thing she should know. How Peeta is much better, at least physically. It's his mental state they're still worried about. "They're not sure, what he'll do when he sees you."

"But he's talking? He remembers who he is?" He was already starting to, down in the cellar, when he fed her the bread.

"Seems to. Speaks all calm and friendly-like, his old self as far as I can tell. That is, until they mention you." Gale explains that the doctors have shown Peeta images of her, just to see what he'll do. And apparently, he won't do anything. He makes like a stone, mute, face gray, lips white as though he's in pain. He just looks away, until they stop. "No one knows what it means."

They drive and drive until an intricate wrought-iron gate bars their way. Gale confers with a voice from a box, and then they continue their journey through yet more trees.

"This was Snow's second residence," he tells her, as the place swells before them, more massive than the doll's house it had looked in the brochure. "One of the places he'd go to get away from it all." That last part is a sneer. Katniss is glad, at least, that one of Snow's lairs is being used for good.

Their steps echo in marble, the long walk to a mahogany desk, behind which smiles a plump woman. "You must be here for Peeta," she says. "If you could sign in, please." Katniss does as requested, her chicken scratch. This place still reeks of Snow. She still has nightmares, of mutts coming for her. Like Peeta came for her. "Your guide will be here in a moment."

"Do you want me to come?" Gale asks in a low voice, as she steps over to inspect a colorful calendar of events, a smorgasbord of fun that had so attracted her to this place.

"No, I should go alone," she says. She can almost hear the dark thoughts behind Gale's glare: that's what you said last time.

As they wait, a gaggle of children streak through the halls. Presumably orphans; there are so many of them now. Hot on their heels is an authority figure of some sort, shouting things like, "Avast!" and "Eureka!" Despite themselves, Gale and Katniss smile at each other, at this unfettered merriment the likes of which you rarely see in 12.

An orderly dressed in soft white escorts her, alone, out to the grounds, to the fields lined with roses. The flowers spread wide and wild now, no forcefields to keep them in their tidy rows. For a while she just wanders, amid the roses. Perhaps it's the anticipation of seeing Peeta again, but the familiar smell doesn't bring nausea. She wends through this maze, drawn by some inevitable force to the place where he is. As she rounds a shrub, she comes to the heart of the garden, where numerous paths intersect in a merry fountain.

There, to one side, sits someone dressed in a clean white shirt and khaki pants. Already, even from behind, she knows who it is. She's found him. She's found Peeta.

The path, which had previously drawn her steps right toward him, now seems impenetrable. She moves through air like stone, fighting for each step until she stands too close but yet achingly far. As she inches nearer, she sees him in the details—shirt correctly buttoned and neatly tucked, hair tamed, sturdy boots with the laces double-knotted.

She sees, also, what he's doing. Peeta _paints_. Beyond the slant of his shoulders, she can see a slice of canvas. It seems to be color chaos, swirls of paint thick and viscous, like the sap that drips down trees. Disappointing, that he still paints gibberish. Yet as she steps closer still, the final steps, she begins to understand. Despite the discord, it means something. It's beautiful, the colors he's used and the way he's shaped them. Coalescing nothing into something.

She must make some sound then, for his head lifts, his brush stills. After a beat, he plinks the brush in a jar and swivels slowly to face her, squinting in the sun. He doesn't startle, to see her, despite how she snuck up on him. They must have warned him, that she was coming.

"Hey," he says. But it's not the good kind of hey, not like before, not like when he looked up from painting his arm once like a tree, during the training for their first Games. His eyes are clear, but they don't brighten, don't harden, don't anything. He looks older than she remembers, face filled once more with the weight of time and memory. He looks his age, eighteen, it seems impossible.

Before she can respond, Peeta looks past her. "I see you brought friends."

She doesn't know what she expected, but she certainly didn't expect this. They told her, that he's getting better. They let her visit him. But here he's saying _friends_ , as though he's seeing something she isn't. Something that isn't there. Disappointment clenches her stomach.

Peeta still looks pointedly past her, at the way she came. So she chances it, a look over her shoulder. At first, she sees nothing but roses, swarms and swarms of them, until she feels like she's going to be sick with disappointment. But then, when she gets past the roses, she sees them, her shadows. There, two boots below a bush. And there, and there. A phalanx of orderlies are doing their best to blend in to the bushes and the hedges. Far enough away that she hadn't heard them follow, fixated on Peeta as she was. But close enough that they could help, if needed. It would be just like Gale, to insist.

"Oh," she says, feeling stupid that they'd been able to sneak up on her.

"Well," he says, a little too brightly. "I'm glad someone thought of it, given that I've tried to kill you twice. What do they say, about third times and charms?" She can't read his tone, this new Peeta. He's joking but not. She feels like she sometimes does walking through District 12, this place she grew up. The geography is the same; the buildings and people are not. It's the same now, with Peeta's face. His features so achingly familiar. His expression far away.

They regard each other as strangers.

"I'm overdue for my walk," he says, standing slowly and stretching. She can't help but stare as he unfurls, the meat on his bones, the color in his cheeks, like a rose in bloom. She hasn't seen him like this in so long that she almost doesn't recognize it. He's _healthy_. "Care to join?" He's so formal, so far away. She doesn't know what to make of it, this new Peeta. She wonders, if she ever really knew him.

"Sure," she says. Peeta nods and leads them down a new path, away from the mansion. It's so much easier, to be moving together, in the same direction. To not have to look at each other. She wonders if he planned it this way. Giving them both time and space, to ease back in to this, whatever it is. Peeta always seemed to know how to make her comfortable. Whether on purpose or by instinct, he does it still.

They walk for a long while, the silence thick like honey, choking and miring. Katniss still doesn't know, what she can even say.

As always, Peeta is the one to break through. "You look well," he says, unbearably polite, as though commenting on the clouds.

"You, too," she says, finding herself echoing his tone. "You're walking much better." And indeed he is, limbs swinging free and easy, not even a limp.

"They gave me a new prosthetic, a better one."

"I'm glad."

All these, the right words to say, but they feel forced, as though they're still on camera, following some unseen script. In a way, they do have an audience, the orderlies scampering behind like roaches, too many feet crunching the gravel on this path. And knowing Snow, there are also security cameras hiding like snakes in the grass or in the buds of roses themselves. So many eyes and ears to absorb what the two former Victors are about to do.

They walk some more, until Katniss can't bear it, the sound of an audience. It's too much; she whirls, ignoring a startled Peeta and marches back to the nearest orderly, who, unlike his peers, isn't even trying to be subtle, stopped square in the path.

"Please," she says. "Peeta and I need to talk. Alone."

The man frowns. "Mr. Hawthorne—"

"Doesn't speak for me," she interrupts, what she should have said a long time ago. "I've got my comm." She palms it, plucked from her pocket. "If I need anything, I'll let you know."

She doesn't wait for an answer, just strides back toward and then past Peeta, heading deeper in to the gardens, away from the mansion. After a moment, Peeta jogs to catch up with her brisk pace, proving that his leg definitely much better. She listens for a while, until she's sure that the footsteps she's hearing are their own.

"Sorry," she barks, irrationally angry. "I just couldn't…"

"I get it. You don't want an audience."

This simple understanding and acceptance—it's a hint of Peeta. Yet still, he remains stoic and almost robotic. She can't find it anywhere, the warmth she remembers in his face. They walk in silence for a while, until she's no longer racing from the world. Until her steps are measured and sure.

Then he says, "So that was the Mockingjay."

"What?" The word, that hated word, jerks her eyes to his.

Peeta looks toward his feet, putting one in front of the other, as though he's soldiering through this. "You, back there. Ordering those men around." She's not sure how to interpret it, his tone. His flesh is pale now, some memory.

"I guess so." She'd picked up a few things, from Coin and Boggs. Ways to get people to pay attention, to her voice and stance. Since he brought it up, she follows that thread. "How do you even know, about the Mockingjay?"

Peeta is quiet for a long time. Then, "They used that footage a lot." She can't be precisely sure what he means, but she assumes that it was part of the brainwashing. The propos that ultimately united the districts are the same ones used to tear Peeta apart. His gaze goes soft, and he recites as though reading from a textbook. "They tortured me using a unique combination of psychotropic agents plus video, audio, and physical stimuli to condition me into a killing machine." Katniss chills at the way he says it, at the very idea. His eyes flit back to her face, gaze sharpens. "My therapist tells me that to name a thing is to gain power over it." But his hands tremble.

"You're not a killer," she says, teeth clenched.

He ignores it, the half-truth, powering through. "My therapist also says it would help, to make amends." As if she's some loose thread to be dealt with and then tucked out of sight. This Peeta looks so healthy and rational. It makes sense that he's looking to recover from this, to get on with his life.

They've reached the farthest edge of the garden. The path that they follow begins a leisurely curve back to whence they came. But they're not done yet, they're not even close to being done. There, beyond a stretch of meadow like a moat, the trees beckon, dark and wise.

Instinct, Katniss veers toward them, wading through grass. But Peeta doesn't move, hanging back on the safety of the path. When it's clear Peeta isn't coming, she stops to regard him. That's when she sees it, a certain something in his face—fear. Of her, for her, she can't be sure. But she sees it, a flicker of flame in otherwise darkness. And she needs to fan it, this emotion, any emotion, or he'll tamp it back down.

She stops and beckons. "Come with me."

He stares at her. A muscle twitches in his jaw, some internal struggle. Then, almost despite himself, he comes, slowly, shadowing her steps. She leads them to the edge of the forest, to the ancient trees that will be their only witnesses. Already, Katniss can breathe easier, the safety of the trees, far from prying eyes, where they can have this conversation in private. Then she stops and sits on a fallen log, waiting for Peeta, who picks his way more carefully across the forest floor.

"Last time we were in the woods," he says, "I tried to kill you." He hangs back, half-hidden by the massive column of an ancient oak.

"You remember."

He doesn't smile, her brushing it off so easily. Instead, he gets straight to the point. "Katniss, I don't know what you expected, coming here today. I agreed to let you see me so that I could say thank you. That I'm so very sorry. And so I could say goodbye."

It sounds so very final, that word. So natural, so effortless. It's always been so easy for him, to say things that need to be said.

Her throat starts to close up, voice small. "We don't have to say goodbye. I can still come visit. And maybe, when you're better—"

"No," he interrupts, soft but firm. "When I leave here, I won't go back to 12."

She feels faint. She can't understand, these words coming from Peeta's mouth. "What?"

Peeta looks down. "I won't impose on you any longer. Things can't go back to the way they were, before. I'm…different. I'm not the same Peeta you knew."

"No," she says. "You're Peeta. You're you."

He just shakes his head. "Katniss, I don't want to…I have to be honest with you. Even though some truths, they hurt. It was always real for me, what I felt for you." (Felt, she thinks, dazed.) "I remember that. I also remember that it wasn't always that way for you, and I could accept that. So now, you're going to have to accept this." He takes a deep breath, reaching for the right words, which always come for him, so easily. "It's too hard, for me to be around you. Even now, I can't think of you, I can't even _look_ at you without feeling…" He trails off, but his face says it all. He looks nauseated. "I have vivid memories of you beating me, poisoning me, eating me. I dream about it, every night."

She'd envisioned this moment a thousand times, these past weeks. But she'd never expected this. Peeta's words feel like fists, as though he's slugged her in the gut. She wishes he had. Wishes he'd scream at her, wrestle with her. Anything but this.

Rejection swells into rage. "We can't let Snow win," she grits. "That's not how this story ends. Snow can't win."

Peeta blanches at the name. But he just shakes his head. "You can't be here. You can't be near me." His tone is final, expression granite.

It's Peeta's voice again, Peeta's face, but not Peeta's words. These are words that Peeta would never say. These words, they come easily, almost too easily, as though someone controls him still. Is it possible for Snow to still be there, somewhere inside? But no, Peeta's eyes are clear, his face full of some unnameable emotion. His words don't sound forced. They sound _practiced_.

He'd said the same thing to her, at the lake. _You can't be here_.

A bolt of lightning, she suddenly understands, what Peeta is doing. Peeta has a _plan_. He came in to this with a strategy, like he had in the Games. He was always so very good at it, playing the citizens of the Capitol, like putty in his hands. He's never tried to play her before.

Until now.

He refuses to hurt her, not ever again, so he's erected a forcefield between them, to keep her away, to keep her safe. But forcefields, they always have a flaw. Beetee taught her that.

"I walked away from you once," she says, "at the lightning tree. I won't do that. Not again."

"Fine," Peeta snaps, getting agitated for the first time, his cracks showing. "Then I'll be the one to walk away." But before he can, Katniss surges up to grip his wrist, as she's done so many times before, to direct him where she wants him to go. She can't let him go. Can't let him walk away, not now. Not after everything. He just stares down at it, this place where they touch.

Gently, he disengages, slipping his fists into his pockets, as if he's afraid of what they might do. But he doesn't try to leave again. He just stands, staring at his feet. Something percolates in his eyes.

"My mother," he says, soft and sick, "we called her the shark. She'd just be standing there, not a word, and then she'd come out of nowhere, snapping at us with razor-sharp words. She'd work herself up into these rages. Sometimes, she locked us in the pig shed without supper. One time she locked Rye up for two days, after he was spotted at the slag heap." Sweat beads on Peeta's brow, some intense emotion. "I swore to myself that I would never do that. That I would never be like her."

"You're not like your mother."

He's incredulous. "I beat you. I starved you. I locked you in a cellar. I was always so very _angry_ at my father. For staying with her, for letting her…" He shakes his head. "Now, I'm just like her; it's in my blood. But I won't let you. I won't let you stay with me. Not after what I've done."

"It wasn't you."

"I'm not safe!" he explodes. "Can't you see? The doctors had no clue, what I would do, what I was capable of. They still don't. They can't make any promises."

"I don't care."

"And what's truly amazing is," he adds, ignoring her. He's just getting started. "It was all my idea. I basically _taunted_ Snow with it, before our first Games…" He rants, pacing furiously in a forest. On and on about how Snow had obviously heard them talking that night and put the idea away for a rainy day, such a marvelous idea, did you hear, let's turn Peeta into a mutt.

"You're you," Katniss whispers, almost in wonder. She's _fascinated_ , might never get over it, the sight of Peeta speaking so eloquently, emotion tinging his voice and eyes and cheeks. Seeing him half-dead for so long, it's glorious to see him vibrantly, utterly alive.

All the while, as he speaks, as he paces, as he gesticulates, Katniss takes tiny steps, closer and closer. Peeta peters out at last, tears and shouts exhausted, here in this cathedral of trees, him confessing his fears, his doubts, his sins.

"Why?" he pleads at last, rounding on her. "Why did you do it? Why did you stay with me? Why are you here?" He pleads, his eyes flooded with that curious blend of fear and hope. Fear, that she did it for the wrong reasons, like some misguided sense of duty, he the only family she has left. And hope, that she did it for another reason. The only reason.

 _Why are you doing this?_ He's asked her this question before, in a cave, eyes limpid in the low light. Then, there were cameras. There was encouragement from Haymitch. There was a very real need to stay alive, at whatever the cost.

She says, "Snow told me to convince him once, that I loved you. I didn't understand, then, how I felt. Or what I could even do, that would prove it." She meets his eyes. "I do now."

Doubt still smears Peeta's expression. They haven't gotten to the root of it, not yet. "You did this for love?"

"Yes."

"There are many kinds of love," he says, almost to himself. "I loved my mother. And my father, even though he stayed with her. You loved Prim. You loved Rue. You would have done anything to keep them safe." He's growing agitated now, building toward something she can't yet see. "You would do anything to keep me safe."

"Yes."

"Do you love me like you loved Prim? Am I your family?"

"Yes."

"Do you love me," he asks, eyes pleading, "like a man?"

And this. This is the deep dark root of it, the source of Peeta's fears and her own. For a year, he's been but a child. Life handed her another child to care for, the way it had Prim. And like she did for Prim, Katniss did her best for Peeta, fierce and protective. She met his needs, she kept him safe. She saw him at his worst, saw him in ways no woman should ever have to see a lover. He became her brother, her child.

Peeta peers into her face so deep, as if her thoughts are words in some esoteric script.

There's no easy way, to answer this question, at least not with words. So she answers with lips. And it's there—in the feel of him and the taste of him and the warmth of him—that the answer finds her, in the form of a spark, her flesh on his, a swelling hunger from deep within.

The kiss is infinite, and even that's too short. She pulls back only because she can't breathe, forehead to his, gasping for breath and so is he.

"Oh," he says, dazed and glazed, eyes blown so very wide, fingers tugging at her hair, always finding her hair. "No cameras," he marvels, a murmur. And that's all he says, pulling her back in.

Then there are no more words. They just hold each other, amid trees that soar and shelter, roots so very deep. Someday, they'll have their very own roots. But for now, they just bask in the delicate newness of it all, their little seedling, razed first by fire, then winter.


	17. Chapter 17

Peeta tells her what it was like, all that time, as they lie together back in 12, entwined in her bed. They can go anywhere, anywhere at all, and yet they're here. Katniss doesn't think she'll ever leave, this bed. "I was there but I wasn't. I couldn't see you. I couldn't find you. I thought once that I'd found you again, in the face of a little girl with two dark braids."

"Hana," she supplies, kissing the soft skin behind his ear. She's relearning him, every place on him.

"Yes," he says, tasting the name. "In some twisted way, I thought she was you. From a long time ago." She'd been jealous of a simpleton for all the wrong reasons. "It wouldn't let me see you."

 _It_ , he says, as though the hijack is some living, breathing thing. Or maybe he means the venom. She can never be quite sure.

"What did you see?"

"A stranger. I could hear you, I could look at you, but you wouldn't… _stick_. I thought you were gone. I thought you had left me with a stranger. And I didn't understand, where you were."

"I'm sorry." She knows now, why Gale can never stop saying it.

"I'm glad," he says. "I'm so very glad it was you, all along. You didn't leave me." And then he buries his face in her hair and he _weeps_.

They have good days. So many good days. Katniss delights at the look in Thom's and Sae's eyes when she introduces them to Peeta—the real Peeta—for the first time. He's still good with Hana. And he can help Clay in the bakery for real now, making the fanciest cakes in all the districts.

One day, he brings home a wedge in a napkin. "It's a piece of wedding cake. I thought," he says, and he hesitates, the way the old Peeta would never have done. "I thought we could use it." And they do, toasting in their own private ceremony. Afterward, when they're crying and laughing, Katniss smears icing on Peeta's face and…other places.

"Wouldn't want that go to waste," she says, and licks it right off.

There are still dark days, too. Mornings where he opens his eyes to static. Days where he goes mute for hours, holding on to something so very tight. Nights where he wakes and screams at her that she _can't be here_. But in those times, she wraps herself around him and doesn't let go. She'll never let go. When another morning comes, there's always the sun, coaxing Peeta back to her, the way it does. And he'll cling to her right back, exhausted, and ask, "Why did you stay with me? Why would you do that?" He's not sure he'll ever fully understand, that year of darkness.

And she answers, the most important word, their word: "Always."


End file.
